Mark Wintle
Well-known member
I cannot remember ever using the spool drag on a Mitchell Match back in the day. The only time I used it at all was using a Mitchell 300 on Dryad Lake where the prolific small carp would pull a rod in when swingtipping and I devised a way to fish with a slack spool - a baitrunner in effect - and tighten up the spool after letting the carp run a bit and then slowly draw the carp in which resulted in losing less than one in ten of carp hooked on a venue where most were losing half the fish they hooked, many by cracking off on the strike. Because the Mitchells backwind sensibly without over-run - unlike Shimanos with backwind allowed - it was easy to let a hooked fish go under pressure if needed - often the case with very big roach in a heavy current or seatrout.