This was the fishing reel that changed my life – at least as far as fishing was concerned. When I began my career as a Devout Angler, there were cane poles and Pfleuger rods and reels. That’s it. Choose a cane pole and your casting was restricted to about 12 feet, depending on the wind; or choose a bait casting reel and you had to use a lure with approximate weight of a bowling ball to make a cast. The Johnson spin cast reels came into play in the mid-50’s, and casting was much easier except when the line became inevitably snarled inside the reel. At that point, your lure would sail out about 20 feet, before coming to a screeching halt and tumbling into the water when the tangle and knots took over. I also didn’t realize at the time that if your reel held 80 yards of monofilament and you kept breaking off line, the reel wouldn’t perform with just a half of a spool.
Mitchell 300 reels entered the fishing scene in a big way in the late 50’s and into the early 60s. I think I got my first one in 1960. It was an open face spinning reel, meaning if there was a tangle you could see it and get it out. And by being open face, the line flew effortlessly off the spool, and you didn’t need a heavy lure in order to cast.
Dave, Mike and I used to be able to heave black Jitterbugs clear across the Greenbrier River on our many trips. Which brings me to one fish I distinctly remember that I caught on my new Mitchell 300 reel
I was fishing with Mike Dawson, who took me to school pretty much every time we fished together. I would catch an 8-inch smallmouth, and he would get a 10-incher. At farm ponds, I would catch a bluegill, and he would land a bass. He always out fished me. But on one morning on the Greenbrier, we were standing side by side, fishing with minnows we had seined earlier from Howard’s Creek. I flipped out a minnow into the edge of the current, had a hit and was soon connected with a 15-inch smallmouth. That many not sound like much of a fish today, but in the early 1960s on a cold-water river like the Greenbrier, it was a horse. The fish jumped and stripped off line but finally came to net. Dawson was flabbergasted. It was a huge catch, and I let him know about it every day after that – until we went again and he out fished me as usual. But on that one day on the Greenbrier River over 50 years ago, my Mitchell 300 came through, and I ruled the world of fishing.
