Centerpinning / Slide loading

The center pin reels were originally brought over from England around the late 60's early 70's. My first one was made there. The reels are about 4 1/2'-6'' in diameter, and basically look like a large fly reel. The main difference was they didn't have an effective drag system (in some cases just a clicker, like on the old Hardy's reels). Most guys removed them, one less thing to screw up in the cold weather.

The most important part of the reel is the center bearing, The idea is to have a reel that will free spool, with as little resistance as possible. After you make a cast, you tighten up the line to remove any slack and set the profile of the float. Then you feather the outer spool rim with your finger tips, to get a drag free drift downstream, keeping as much line off the water as possible.

It is without doubt the most effective way of catching Steehead. You effectively are feeding the fish.

The person you mentioned was Phil Clough, Phil's father designed a center pin, that was far superior to any mass produced reel. If you can find one (sometimes you'll see them on e-bay) they sell for about $4000.00 US.

Lorne Green (G.Loomis Canada) was one of the main principals involved with designing the rods, the early ones were made by Lamiglass (Gary Loomis worked for them, I believe). When Gary started his own manufacturing plant he started making the blanks for Lorne, Premier, IM6, GL3, IMX, and now the GLX cloth. Over the last thirty years I've owned everyone of these and numerous center pins. The downside to all this is the fact, that when you become proficient with the center pin system, there isn't much of a challenge !!

That's basically the history of the Center-pin (also known as float fishing, pinning, drift fishing etc) here in southern Onatrio. One thing I didn't mention was the fact that when you use these 13+ ft rods you can go down to 2-4lb tippet and small hooks, another reason this method is so deadly.

Most run mono for the main line, 12lb test is fine, with a 2-6lb floro tippet/leader. The trick is to build some insurance into the system, so if you break off you don't loose all your shot and the float. I run mostly clear piker thru floats. I would cut off the bottom plastic piece, round it off with sand paper (you'll need to look at one to understand what I mean). Then two bobber stoppers, one above the float one below, so I can adjust to the depth of the run. Most use a couple of heavy round shot so the float will cock right away, then a series of shot to get a proper drift. It is quite common to use an ant swivel to join the main line to tippet/leader. Some of the terms we use vary from fly fishing, for example we call the last piece of mono/floro our leader, not tippet. There is a great deal of information now available, back in the 60/70's it was all by trial and error. I don't fish this style much any more, in fact I don't have a center-pin and rod at the moment. I much prefer using a drift rod and level line reel, for float/drift fishing. The rods are shorter 11-12ft and most use a bass low profile reel, again with 12lb test, float, shot, ant swivel and leader (then your offering).

I started out using center-pins many years ago, then changed over to a fly rod, for the next twenty five + years I did nothing but fly fish. A number of years ago, I got interested in how many different ways you could fish for Steelhead. I read as much as I could on the subject, what I found out was how refined these techniques have become over the last so many years. Also how much you can improve your fishing ability if you understand these different techniques. I know this is way off the subject, but if you break each one of these techniques down you will see how closely related they are to different fly-fishing tactics. A good example is using spinners, done properly, you swing them across the river slowly much the same as you would a Spey fly. Using these different techniques is a great way to understand good holding water, quite often I would Spey down a run, then cast a spinner down the same run only to hit a fish in an unlikely spot. I'd mark this spot to run a fly through the next trip.

The most important thing is conservation, how you respect your quarry, I practice catch and release and go to great measures to ensure the fish will survive. Thanks for posting these. It brings back some cold winter memories on the big head river, with ice in your guides.

Rick

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Hi Gordy,

Centre pin reels are not designed for fly fishing, they are designed for trotting which is float (bobber) fishing traditionally with bait but in recent times they have been used with nymphs for various species. Steelhead fishermen took a liking to the Hardy Super Silex centre pin spinning reel which is of heavier construction and was originally designed for casting and fishing with heavy lures or natural baits, they had to be heavy because the spool has quite a large inertia. They also have mechanical means to prevent spool overrun. I have one of these but have never used it in earnest. Originally they would be used with level silk line for spinning.

Classic centre pin reels (sometimes called “Match Reels”) as Rick describes have perfect balance and spin freely, this can be helpful for casting but that is not the reason for the free spooling, its actually for minimising drag on a float that is dead drifting (trotting) downstream whilst the angler occasionally fingers the reel spool just enough to ensure that the float is retarded to let the bait lead the way downstream.

The normal method of casting these outfits is using a long rod not unlike a fly rod but generally tip action (in the old days the bottom two or three sections would be solid natural bamboo cane and the top section would be built cane), the rod would be cast single handed (they were light but generally 11 to 13ft long) and the fingers of the line hand would have a loop of line at arms length extended between the first two rod rings, and subsequent loops between each set of rings on different fingers, up to 4 loops could be held and released at the stop in the correct order.

Again as Rick mentioned top class casters (very skilful) could also spin the drum after line release to get more distance. Most famous reel is the Allcock Arial characterised by a very light (low rotational mass) spool and very large arbour (they are designed for fine line and don’t need to have much capacity. I have an example made by J W Young called the “Rapidex” and can send a picture if it’s of interest. The Alvey side caster came after the Malloch spinning reel which was also a side caster but the spool on the Malloch can be reversed so that the twist put in during one cast could be taken out at the next. The Malloch was designed for similar purpose to the Hardy Super Silex.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes,

Ally Gowans

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From Guy Manning:

Gordy,

After all this on “slide loading”, I still see it as a form of self-optimization on the part of the caster. The comments by Gary Easton and some others seem to support this. Bruce, being the amazing stud he is, self-optimizes without it. I only do it at times. If I am standing square, I do not. If I am standing open, I do. Neither time do I consciously apply one or the other, it just happens.

BTW, I probably should have mentioned that the videos of Jay, Steve and Renee are of them firing off shooting heads. So some changes may occur when casting floating lines. But from observation I know they also use a bit of “slide loading” with the floaters. Here is Jay back in August with a floating 6 wt Sharkskin line on a 9 ft Helios at GGACC. It is a large file video. http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n163/grhen/video/?action="">

Guy Manning

FFF Master Certified Casting Instructor

Moderator FFFCCI Yahoo Group

www.castflys.net

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