POWER-OPERATED REELS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 11

POWER-OPERATED REELS

HANDICAPPED ANGLER’S DEVICE “The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND. January 23. A power-operated reel will be used for deep-sea fishing off the Bay of Islands for the first time this week. Mr H. C. Dahl, of Beverley Hills, California, brought the reel to Auckland with him last week. “It’s not my idea to take the sport out of fishing,” he said. “I designed it simply because I have arthritis and my arm gets tired easily. I hope that other people like myself can use this type of reel some day.” Mr Dahl started to think about a power-operated reel about three years ago while fishing for salmon in the Rogue river, Oregon. r ine salmon run at 25 to 35 pounds there and he found that he tired quickly. It took him about a year and a half to adapt a reel and he used it for the first time off Hawaii on his way to New Zealand. He caught a marlin weighing 168 pounds and a tuna of 164 pounds. The catches were described in Honolulu newspapers as “the first fish ever caught with an electric-power reel.” The left-hand side of the reel is fitted with a gear arrangement so that the powerdrive can be connected to a flexible shaft. The shaft is then carried beneath the chair and out of the way to a small, four-inch fluid coupling which is directly connected to a one-tenth horsepower d.c. 12-volt motor. The motor is connected to a battery. A manually operated switch for the motor can be operated either in the seat of the angler’s chair, or on the floor, to engage the motor or disengage at will. The purpose of the fluid coupling is to prevent the fish from breaking the line when the power is working in one direction and the fish in the other. There is not enough torque in the motor to break the line. Mr Dahl said he had patented the reel and he hoped that some firm would manufacture it. “This reel is for handicapped people,” he said, “not for the ardent fisherman. A man who has no arm at all could use it. The principle can be applied to any reel.”