Viking Lars | Saturday, 8 January 2022
I don’t often mention new products, but every now and then something comes on the market that I really like. Something I believe solves something that have not really been solved before, or a real improvement to solutions fly fishers have hacked before.
One of those products is this new-for-2022 “Regulator Spool” from Scientific Anglers. “Isn’t that just a line winder?”, some will ask. Yes - and it’s a really clever and well-thought-out-one. Simply because it’s very travel friendly and in fact made for travel. It will work just as well at home. It’s light weight and packs at about the same size as a normal fly line spool.
I suspect a lot of people travel with several lines for the same rod - even for different rods, if you have a reel that fits more than one rod weight. Most will bring at least one extra reel too and some might not have an extra. When hiking more than one extra reel might be excluded for weight- and capacity issues. This is where the Regulator Spool comes in.
If you pack your lines in plastic bags rather on the spools, they are lighter and take up very little space. Especially if you’re carrying extra WF-lines, a line change can be a bit cumbersome and almost always involves putting a lot of kinks into both lines as you wind and unwind them
The Regulator Spool not only removes that issue completely - it also makes a line change much faster.
As the PoD shows, in it’s closed state it’s the same size as a normal fly line spool. As you twist it open, the pegs that the fly line rolls over retract, so you can get the line off after you’ve fitted a couple of pipe cleaners to keep everything neatly together. You can also see the two handles stored inside the spool.
One handle attaches to one side of the spool centrally - in the hub, so to speak.
The other one off-set, so when you hold the first, the spool rotates freely, the other one acting as a winding handle. When the line is wound and you open the spool the pegs retract and the line is neatly coiled - twist free.
Coil size can be adjusted by how far you twist, ss you twist the spool into “closed state”. It has steps if you want smaller coils. All in all, I can’t see that this device leaves anything to be desired. And I will be using it for my shooting heads too. Even though these are shorter and line twist can be avoided fairly easily, it will make changes faster.
It’s sturdy too and maybe the best part? It’s salt water proof. There are no metal parts at all. A simple rubber band retracts the pegs when the spool is opened. If this breaks, a simple house hold rubber band will do just as well. The prise is fair, I think. 29.95 US dollars. A small post on a travel budget. Scientific Anglers have a video on how to use it here.
Have a great weekend!
Lars
In full disclosure, I was given this by Flyfish Europe, the European distributor of Scientific Anglers. Not to review, that was my choice.