This is more about the guys I met on the THompson in the early days. In the early 80's I probably stuck out a bit because I was a fly fisherman and there weren't many guys doing that, especially in the places I fished. A group of White Rock guys took me under their wing when they saw me hook a big buck at Gold Pan (behind where they'd just fished) and saw me turn it loose.
They were all Super Silex and Jewel guys and watching them cast those things was poetry in motion. But I also realized those old Hardy reels they were using might open a whole new world if I adapted it to a fly reel
So I floated the idea in their group: if any of them ever wanted to part with one of their Super Silexes, I'd be all over it. So one day I got a call from one of them. His name was Fred. A member of their club had just died and his widow wanted to sell her deceased husband's collection. Would I be interested in getting first crack?
I was in my truck the next morning, driving up to White Rock. I was a bit queasy because I knew it would be an awkward scene. The guy had only recently passed and I didn't want to appear to be a vulture picking over the reels he used
I found the house and after being invited inside I sucked in my breath. The entire basement had been turned into safe deposit box. Every room had huge bars across the door way....it looked like Fort Knox. And in each room were apple crates stuffed with Super Silexes and Jewels and Longstones of every size and vintage. I'd never seen anything like that before.
Short story, I hit the highway going south with at least 10 of the most gorgeous reels I'd ever seen. And they became the seeds of a Hardy reel collection I've been building on ever since
Here's a few of them:
So here's the reason why I got so enthralled with the Super Silex. It spins like a dream. You can flick the handles and if it's properly lubed, it'll spin for a minute. And here's the magic trick I figured out you could do with those reels:
I loaded up a 4" Super Silex not only with a floating weight forward line but also spliced on a 100 yard floating running line behind that line. Then I went down to a huge open run like the GRaveyard, made a quarter downstream cast with a large dry fly, flicked the free-spool pawl of the Super Silex, and let that fly go on off downstream with zero drag. Back in those days I had a 16 footer that a guy had made up for me. It gave me huge line control even with a hundred yards of line out in the river. And I'll be blowed---I started catching steelhead on a drag-free drift with a dry fly several hundred feet downstream from where I was standing!
And because my fly was dead drifting, not skating, it drove those fish beserk. Sometimes they'd boil at the fly 4 or 5 times before inhaling it. I was fortunate to still be young in those days because a steelhead boiling over and over at your fly, especially a 16 pound THompson doe, is enough to induce a heart attack.
I started using that trick up on the Skeena where I could be alone in a huge piece of open water and that trick was so effective I almost gave up fishing wet flies. It was nuts!
SO I don't remember Fred's last name. Maybe some of you guys knew him? He was a THompson fixture---I saw him every time I went up there and if it wasnt for that chance meeting, I never would have discovered the wonders of using a Super Silex as a fly reel.
One of those Supers made my whole trip on the Skeena and BUlkley this past fall. Thanks, Fred!
