HERE is a sound that all fishermen long to hear: the music of a screaming reel after a slight tug from the fish on the line followed by a long run. The purpose of a reel is simple: to store line and to help play the fish. Nowadays we view it as an essential feature of an angler’s kit. However, it was only in the middle of the 17th century that the reel became popular. The Chinese were most likely the first to invent the reel, in around 300AD, but the earliest reel to appear in England was in the 1650s, at a time when interest in fly-fishing was beginning to grow. In his book , Thomas Barker describes what might be considered an early reel: ‘… within two foot of the bottome of the Rod there was a hole made, for to put in a winde, to turne with a barrell, to gather up his Line, and loose at his pleasure’. Before this a common rod set-up was to tie a horsehair
