Reely beautiful
Written: Dec 21 '02 (Updated Dec 21 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Hardy cachet, a work of art, authoritative click, smooth action
Cons: The price
The Bottom Line: A collectable work of fly fishing art.
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| plilikoi's Full Review: Hardy Golden JLH Ultralite |
What is it?
The JLH Ultralite was introduced to market by the House of Hardy, Alnwick, England in 1999. A freshwater click check reel, it is one of the lightest of its genre. The #6, for example, a 3 1/4" diameter reel, weighs only 3 5/8 ounces. One reason for its light weight is the unusually narrow center spindle which allows 120 yards of 10lb backing with #6 weight-forward line. In contrast, the 3 1/4" #6 Marquis weighs 4 3/8 ounces and allows for only 50 yards of 10 lb backing with #6 weight-forward line.
The Golden JLH Ultralite is a gold-anodised variant of the regular silver-colored JLH Ultralite machined from aluminum bar stock. It is presumably meant to be matched to a bamboo rod, but it looks great with a graphite rod too.
The reel comes in a small velvet pouch closed with a draw string. It looks precious even before you open the pouch!
The spool's rim is exposed for palm-control and spools are easily swapped using a quick-release locking latch.
The drag is set by a 1" diameter control emblazoned with the House of Hardy logo. It is much easier to adjust the drag on this reel than it is on other reels I've used, including the Hardy Marquis. This reel makes a very authoritative clicking sound when turned, which is as much a trademark of Hardy reels as the throbbing noise is a trademark (registered or not!) of Harley Davidson motorbikes.
The drag
The drag is the most important function of a reel other than it being the place in which to store line. There are basically two types of drag, click check and disc.
The click check mechanism is a simple mechanical device in which a metal torsion bar in the spool is pressed against a cog that hits a gear on the spindle. The movement of the cog against the teeth in the gear is what makes the clicking noise when the spool turns. Tightening the drag increase the pressure of the cog against the gear.
The disc drag is like a car disc brake. These often lose friction when they get wet, a common enough occurrence when fishing!
Hardy advertises this reel as having a "compensating click check" drag, but I have no idea what it's compensating for. As line leaves the spool, the diameter of the remaining line surface decreases markedly, more so in this reel than most, because the central spindle is so small. This means that the drag increases a lot as line is drawn out. If you're fortunate enough to hook into a large enough fish that it peels a lot of backing line out of the spool you're going to have to back off on the drag. I estimate the drag will increase approximately 10-fold by the time that the spool has been almost depleted of line. It will take 10 times as many revolutions to pull a foot of line off the spool when it is almost empty compared to when it is full. There will also be a lot of drag exerted by the water on all that line.
Ha, but you're extremely unlikely to hook into a fish that pulls out all that line. When you add the weight of the additional backing that this reel can carry, 70 yards, it might not fall far short of the weight of the Marquis. This isn't such an unfair comparison since you're never likely to use the additional backing and the leader would most likely snap if you did.
What's needed is a drag system that exerts a constant force on the line irrespective of how much line has been removed from the spool. An added benefit would be that one turn of the spool always lets out, or retrieves, the same amount of line.
The manufacturers' contemporary, and clumsy, answer to this problem has been to create large arbor spools, but these are necessarily larger and weigh more.
I'll opt for regular size reels, going easy on the drag and being sure to back it off if I'm lucky enough to hook into a big fish.
Other features
This reel is easily adjusted from right to left hand retrieve. Hardy supplies kits of spare parts. The warranty is for the lifetime of the original owner.
Prospective purchasers
Who would buy one? You can't justify the price on the basis of function, just as you can't justify buying a Cadillac instead of a Ford. I bought one recently on eBay. It's beautiful (and expensive). I don't know if I can bear to fish with it lest it gets scratched, but I'll try since that's the reason I bought it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
plilikoi
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Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Reviews written: 76
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
Raised in Scotland, living in San Diego. Getting older and wiser daily, older for sure!
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