Peter's Labour of Love

When an old fashioned round maggot box landed on my desk, I thought someone had sent me some bait!

Further inspection - (that should read - further careful inspection) - I gingerly opened the box and discovered a work of art therein. Yep - nestled inside the foam-lined maggot box was a gleaming centrepin, along with a short handwritten note of explanation.

Intrigued? I was hooked straight away!

Retired toolmaker Peter Hutt of Cleveleys, wanted a project to fill his time after retirement, so his wife suggested he enlisted at a local evening class, making model boats, and during the classes, homework was set - so life-long angler Peter, decided to make a centrepin fishing reel - which turned out to be a true labour of love.

Drawing on a lifetime of engineering and toolmaking experience, Peter started work in his garden workshop, which is equipped with a lathe, drilling machine and bandsaw to create the reel pictured left.



Starting with square scraps of aluminium, Peter cut the circles with hand-shears, then a tooling hole was drilled and reamed in the centre, from which all the other holes and the outside diameter and rolled edges were produced.

If you look at the pic, you'll notice the reel has no handles, Peter says he simply inserts a finger into one of the main four holes and spins the reel from there. To be honest from my 'pin experience, I simply 'bat' the drum to rewind, it's the quickest way to get line back on your reel. 'Batting' this reel is helped by the knurling around the outside edge, it's just deep enough to give you a good grip, even when wet. You'll also notice Peter has incorporated a line clip, not many centrepins are endowed with such luxuries!


Situated on the back of the reel is the ratchet lever, which when engaged gives off a lovely deep-toned click when the reel revolves. Not many anglers use the ratchet on their reels, finding it too distracting, perhaps they need to catch a few big fish - that's when you find the ratchet very handy!

Quality engineering...
Two ball races on the tool-steel main shaft allow the reel to spin very freely, if you look really hard at this reel it almost starts spinning by itself! The gap between the spool and the frame is so small, even the 4lb line already spooled on the reel couldn't find a way to tangle, I just managed to get a slip of 80gms paper between the spool and frame, precision tolerances - or what?

Peter says this reel could be made quite easily with power presses, so if there's any engineers out there that are interested, contact us here at Anglers Today.

Still fishing on the River Wyre, Peter has landed many a chub using this reel, that's when he's not sea fishing or catching trout!

Did I mention Peter is now 79 years young?

What an inspiration!







Side view:
Notice the rolled knurled edge, ideal for 'batting' the line back onto the reel



Until next time, good fishing to you all!

Kevin Miles
Editor