Reels MS|Color Mug

The Story

It was in 1803 that George Snyder, a watchmaker, turned his watchmaking talents to the design of a new reel that would permit casting directly from the spool. It had been impossible to accomplish this task with the existing single-action reel. He built the first geared, quadruple-multiplying reel in 1810! The fact that few changes have been made in the basic concept over the past two-hundred years is proof that Snyder designed it well.

The final step in the evolution of bait-casting reels was the free spool model, which made it possible to cast light lures a respectable distance. The modern trolling reel, perfected to the max with its star drag and lever drag is a logical progression of these early bait-casting reels.

Here’s our tribute to those early inventors and creative pioneers, names such as Pflueger and Shakespeare (and scores of others) who forged this colorful history.