Alvey Reels – a little bit of LBG history (As relayed from John Derkacz to Geoff Simmons) The reel in the picture was an Alvey heavy duty ( Deep Spool ) Fibreglass reel, Model and was purchased in the early 1980’s by my younger brother. We called it a knuckle buster. it was bought for its line capacity ( 900 metres ) , strength and its durability. He believed that with that line capacity he could stop any big Yellowfin tuna which he went to do. He caught two fish of around 125lb and lost many others for various reasons. The day before the reel disintegrated he had caught two yellowfin tuna, the first weighed 25lb. He put his line out again and went about cleaning his first capture for storage in an ice box. About an hour had passed and his line screamed off. He knew he was on with a much larger fish from the pitch of the screaming ratchet and from the fast spinning spool that needed a little control by hand to prevent an over run and consequent birds nest. Whenever any of us fought a big fish, we would pour water on the line to prevent any heat stress and to prevent weakening of the line. No rollers on our rods. They kept the line wet and cool as part of our standard practice, but my younger brother wound the line on the spool of the reel in an offset fashion so that the line was bunched up on one side of the spool. Like a wobbly wheel effect. Anyway, he landed his second yellowfin tuna in an hour and this one weighed about 80lb. The second fish was prepared for the ice box. My old brother suggested that the line pressure on the reel should be released that night In readiness for the next day’s fishing. I do not know the reason why my younger didn’t strip off and reload the line evenly on the spool. During the night, my younger was awoken by a cracking noise and went back to sleep. Next morning they found the reel was broken as in the picture. They believed that it broke for a few reasons. Firstly, the line was wound on the spool under pressure that should have been released and rewound back on the spool either straight away or later that day. Secondly, the line was saturated with water during the day and overnight had dried and shrunk. This increased the pressure of the unevenly wound line on the spool and broke it. So the moral of this story is to release the line pressure ( you can hear the line crackle as it come off the reel ) and to wind on the line evenly. Do it for any type of reel.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 08:00:40 +0000
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