Mitchell Match / Reel advice please

[Altair4]

New to this forum, and just had a little dabble at fishing on a boating holiday on The Broads with my son, after a 25-odd year break. Dusted off the old tackle, renewed line & hooks and had a go - it was suprising how much came back to me and my son loved it.

I was especially impressed with the old trusty Match 440A reel, what a fantastic piece of engineering. My son is interested in doing some more fishing so I need to get some more tackle. He got on really well with the automatic bail arm on the old Match - can anyone tell me if there are modern reels with auto bail arms, or do I need to get a 2nd hand Match from Ebay?

Cheers

[fishypaul]

i'm afraid the match fishing scene is not my thing,i would however like to welcome you to the forum and look forward to your input

[Greenheart]

Welcome to the Forum Altair. The Mitchell match was the top reel of it's day for match fishing & is far better quality than todays Mitchells.

By todays standards, it's fairly heavy, but still very useable. The automatic bail arm was a great idea & i'm not sure why they stopped using this principal. I'm not aware of any modern reels that have automatic bail arms. Royobi did produce an automatic during the early 1980s called the Mastermatch 200 which was also a very good reel.

The only other one touch casting reels that are made today are the closed face models by ABU & Daiwa.

These are great for close in trotting on rivers when fishing the stick float etc, but are not ideal for long distance casting. If you enjoy your Mitchell, stick with it. I think Mitchell still carry a good stock of spares for these models & also offer a repair service if required.

[Altair4]

Thanks for the advice - really appreciated. I am so impressed with he way the Match reel performs like new after 25 plus years. Going to get another off ebay - there are plenty for sale.

Thanks again.