thoughts on intrepid reels

[Tonytoned]

Elite's all day long..... Since I have been using Intrepid Elites this year I totally fallen in love with them, a wonderful piece of engineering. I'd put them up there with Mitchell's and ABU.

[Nobby]

I love that shot of the Intrepid, the float and that pristine roach. That's just the perfect image of a great day by the waterside! Best shot I've seen in weeks...so evocative......

[Tonytoned]

I have been in love with Intrepid reels since I bought my first reel around my 10th. birthday ... an Intrepid Monarch Mk. II ... with which I fished for all my teenage years for everything from perch and roach in my 'secret pool,' to my first match on the Ashby Canal, to 'worming' for trout and eel on scout camps, to catching jack pike on a tributary of the River Mease, to spinning for mackerel from Devon and Dorset beaches on family caravan holidays in the 1960s.



I also love my Intrepid 'Classic,' about 2/3rds the size of a Mitchell 300, but a lovely light reel for crucian.



My Intrepid 'Elites' are a delight ... light and reliable ... and a match (in my opinion) for the Mitchel 300 (I await to be shot down in flames ... but there's nothing like an Intrepid to take me back years) ... a perfect roaching reel.



BUT ... if I were to go piking, or carping ... I'd be using one of my Intrepid Continentals ... much more suited to the task.



Just my opinion, of course !!! (or should that be 'of coarse' ?)

Have to agree with you on the Elite, superb reel smooth, and good looking, and what wonderful childhood memories. Great read AshbyCut.

[SeanM]

I too started with an Intrepid as my first fixed spool reel having struggled with my little blue plastic centre pin for a number of years. I think it was a Monarch and it was bought with a voucher I won in my first junior match. Those drag washers had a habit of working loose and disappearing so in the end I ended up using a nut and a washer. I replaced it with a Mitchell 308 around 1970.

The use of plastic for the gears came about with the promotion of "engineering" plastics by the big chemical companies in the 1960s. Little was known about machining them or about how long they would last so it was all a bit suck it and see.

[Nigel Rainton]

I sold hundreds, possibly thousands, of Intrepid reels. I also had many returned, mainly for faults in the metal castings.

[Stingray]

I sold hundreds, possibly thousands, of Intrepid reels. I also had many returned, mainly for faults in the metal castings.

So the ones that are still in circulation are the good ones - buy with confidence

[Nigel Rainton]

....or they haven't been dropped yet :-)

[FishingCarpenter]

l have to say all the intrepid reels i have brought even in a very battered State have all been brought back from the dead . if i can reproduce springs and line rollers with a old lathe anyone can , l will try to gear hob a bronze main gear for the elite . hopefully i will learn how to include photos. be nice to show my light weight grice and young side casters, even just to give you something to laugh at .

[Jeremy Croxall]

Just bought another Elite in case my existing one has a problem.
There is something about these reels which appeals to me, not sure quite what it is but its just something.....Perhaps I'm not alone in having this special regard for a certain item of tackle, not because of its value or rarity or anything like that but simply for it being just what it is!

[FishingCarpenter]

bit like bsa bantams and c15s