Hardy Jock Scott Tournament

[Churchill]

Photos of another special reel.
"*This reel was formally the property of Mr. J. L. Hardy with which he broke two distance casting records in the 1960’s."
Enjoy









Thanks for looking
Brian

[Dave Burr]

Lovely!

[Tinca Tinca]

Am I right that this reel was thought for plug fishing?I think I heart of a Jock Scott lure....

A lovely reel that I saw only a few times the last years...

[Churchill]

"Jock Scott" was the pen name of Douglas George Ferris Rudd, angling writer and coach. Hardys' designed the reel to his requirements.

According to Jim Hardy's book it was meant to overcome some of the problems then associated with bait casting including ~
"The difficulty of making long casts when using a line of 6lb or greater - impossible with all fixed spool reels except the Altex No 3"
"The bug bear of kinked lines"
. . . and several other reasons which I can scan if anyone is interested

The reel named after him was made between 1938 and 1952 (excluding WW2 years)

Hardys also produced a rod and a number of plug baits named "Jock Scott".

[Tomeland]

I have the book by Jock Scott 'Spinning Up to Date' 2nd edition (I think it went to five). He describes how he tried various gear for lure fishing, for Salmon mostly I presume, and found it all wanting. The popular Silex type and Mallocks side casters he found unsuitable for light baits. Hardy's were always very amenable to those requiring special orders or alterations to existing rods or reels. One of the Hardys helped him design and test his reel and lures.
The lures, they called 'Wigglers', originally had two nose mounting points and two different weights of plummet which attached to the underside of the lure body. This, according to his book, allowed the lure to be fished at four different depths of water, depending upon fishing conditions and fishes preference. Also the single treble hook was held to the tail by a breakaway fine wire but was attached to the lure by a wire trace coming from a mounting point behind the plummet mount on the lure belly. The line didn't need any wire trace to be used because there was a strong wire trace link from the nose to the belly running inside the lure body, which coupled with the breakaway trace to the hook kept a fishes mouth well away from the line. The breakaway was designed to stop a fish using the body of the lure to lever the hook out.
All quite complex in design and manufacture which is probably why Hardy's later started to produce the lure with out plummets, and with lead wire wrapped around the belly double hook instead. This gave additional hooking, but not sure if they also stopped putting the internal link in too. They also cut the nose mounting point to a single loop. Hardys also produced simpler lures with similar body shape but without the breakaway and called them simple Wrigglers to differentiate them from the 'Jock Scott' Wrigglers.
Small sizes of Wigglers had a clear Perspex diving vane and larger ones a metal scooped vane with the Hardy name stamped on it.



this photo gleaned from Google shows at the top an original lure (without breakaway wire and treble hook) showing the double nose mounting loops, the single belly loop, and two plummets on the card. Below are different sizes and variants with more hooks, loops, and lead wire. The lure on the left is the plain Hardy Wiggler without the Jock Scott details.



this shows the nose better, and below shows the slot on top of the lure filled with wood which must be something to do with the fitting of the internal wire link.



Jock Scott must have seen the American multipliers and baitcasters and plugs popular 'over there'. He specifically wanted his reel to have a narrow spool so as not to require a level-wind mechanism, which cuts down casting distance, and also a free-spool lever, which very few multipliers had at that time. Even Hardy's later Elarex reel was still of the 'knuckle buster' type.

[Tomeland]

That's a beautiful reel and box there Churchill. Might we see the internals of the box too?

[Churchill]

This is the only shot I have of the box interior -

[Tomeland]

Thanks. The Hardy casting weights too. The box internals look different to the usual one which came with the H.J.S.reel and line winder.