any one have any feed back on willow reels?

D

DJBerg

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Aug 20, 2012
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so my grand father's husband passe away last week and while the whole fam damily was in town, my uncle from up in Minneapolis gave me a reel. he would not say where he got it, other than "from a friend" and told me to put use to it...

its a willow reel the model seems to be a "Maple Burl Inlay" (site here: http://willowreels.com/maple_burl.html ). damn thing's purdy and fancy, though i'm not sure what to do with it, so damn nice that i would rather frame it than fish it...

any body have one or have any feed back on these reels? not sure if i'm gonna keep it or try to sell it to fund more bamboo working stuff. i personally would rather have something i could not fear dropping on rocks and damaging/scratching it.

i'll post some pics for you all to see, it really is beautiful.
 

So, someone gave it to you to use it and you're going to sell it?

Classy.
 
Seriously, I dont think i could bring myself to use it, I would end up scratching the hell out if it. Im way too hard on everything I own. after a bit if googling I think its a 2/3. And for the story of willow reels some guy imports them, and they are all hand made by a retired korean areo-space engineer, and ill give it to that guy, he is a seriously talented machineist.

Gfen- im sorry it may not be in the best taste to use it to fund other fishing stuff, but I feel it would be better put to use by some one who wouldnt end up scratching the hell out of it.
 
Dude that reel is unique. Use it! Don't fear the reaper. Ask yourself why it was given to you in the first place.
 
Call the inevitable scratches character lines. Each one would have a story.
 
True. Reels are meant to be fished, even the purdy ones. Reel makers KNOW what fly fishermen do to their reels. This reminds me of Johnny Cash. He said he couldn't stand when people treated a guitar like a baby. He thought it was an instrument that should be used like an instrument. Look at Willie Nelson's guitar, man. It's got a freaking hole in the side and has masking tape on it. I'm not saying to beat the shart out of the reel, but you can't fear what COULD happen to the reel if you use it. If the reel had a soul (this is really lame haha!), I bet it'd prefer to go out of this world being used rather than be preserved on a book case for who knows how long.

I believe the instructions that came with the reel were, "put it to use".
 
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just weird having a reel worth more than any current set up i own lol
 
I am more interested in the aspect of your grandfathers husband. I want to know how that all played out back in those days.
 
You would be shane, geez and once upon a time, I though man that dude won a serious trouting contest, I bet he'd be a great guy to fish with n learn some stuff from. Now im wondering if the lesson id learn would be an experiance I would want to endure.

And yeah I read that earlier, and forgot to correct it. Grand mother's husband....
 
No one wants to fish with me and put up with my ball busting. So don't worry about it.
 
Fish with Shane. He'll put you over a scooter of a lifetime.
 
Razors all day, baby!
 
bah it's not the ball bustin' i'm worried about...

then i'd have to figure out who these "razors" are, figure out their big rival team, and start planning my see how many flies shane an loose in the trees game. :cool::cool::cool:
 
DJBerg wrote:
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just weird having a reel worth more than any current set up i own lol
Click to expand...

Meh. Guys have been sticking $30 Medalists on several thousand dollar bamboo rods for ages. This is just the reverse, right?

A lot of my reels are worth more than the rods upon which they sit.
 
andy, the more i think about it the less i really have any desire to have this pretty little thing, hell, i can list a bunch of #censor# i'd far rather have, one big one a decent 12+" swing metal lathe(build my own reels, and learn all in one), still need to acquire a binder for the bamboo project, hell compensate my credit from the last batch of work i did to my truck...

yeah maybe in the future, i may regret selling it but i just cant justify having it now.
 
Gorgeous. If I had a cane rod, that'd be the reel.
 
Spool it up with 300 yards of 50 lb flouro. Head to the SR when it's around 1700 cfs and tail hook a few mud sharks. Give that clicker a little workout. LMAO. It's purdy but I'm thinking it wouldn't make it back in working order.
 
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