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The two I chose had Browning medium action 6-1/2 foot spinning rods, mounted on them were a pair of Garcia Mitchell mod. 300 spinning reels, the rods cleaned up well and the coated handles are still in good shape (the wonders of a little water and Dawn dish soap), the Reels still functioned fine but were quite a bit sluggish, after taking one of them apart (they don't build reels like those anymore, all the parts are metal except for the spool body, the gears are machined) I cleaned all the old grease, lightly lubed all the parts and put it back together it works like new, I stripped the spool and will be refilling it with new line this afternoon.
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Those old Mitchell 300's are worth every bit of TLC you can give them! My Dad used a Mod 300 exclusively for salmon in Puget Sound. Back in the '50s, 20-30 lb Chinooks (Kings) and even some big Coho (Silver) were common. He took a 38 lb Chinook on that reel, and after I inherited it, my biggest was a 22 lb Coho. There's no bucket mouth I've ever heard of that will win against that 300. I seriously wish I still had it.
I bought both Mitchell 300's at the same time, up until that time I used to pick up whatever was cheap or used what was given to me by older guys who were up grading, and I only fished locally and mostly alone, I actually hated fishing until I was in my early twenties, my dad and grand dad used to fish several times a week and ice fished in winter, but they fished for food more than fun, they'd take anything that came along but mostly took bull heads and ells, and of course I had to go with them.
Back then the only reels we had were the old bait casting reels and the only controls were your thumb, at five or so years old it's hard to get the hang of stopping the line before the bait hit the water, which results in the dreaded birds nest, catching fish was not my strong suit, making birds nest was, my dad used to get so frustrated he'd make me go sit in the car for the remainder of the fishing time, whenever he'd tell me we were going fishing I was sure I had committed some kind of mortal sin and that was my punishment.
When I turned twenty I and a cousin opened a body shop, the following spring he asked me to go fishing with him, my immediate reply was "what did I do wrong", he wouldn't let it drop so I agreed to go with him once if he left me alone about fishing after that.
It was a frosty morning on April 15th., we rented an aluminum row boat that had ice on the seats, I had borrowed a rod & reel and some tackle from my father and made a thermos of hot soup, by the time the sun came full up we hadn't got so much as a nibble, he was having a great time, I was bored and cold and it didn't promise to be getting any better, so I reeled in the jitterbug that I had been casting and put the rod across the gunnels on the boat in front of me and was just reaching for my thermos when my rod jumped off the gunnels and the reel caught the side of the boat, at the same time I was being drenched with ice cold water.
When I put the rod across the gunnels the jitterbug was dangling about a few inches above the water, I don't know if the giant pickerel followed my lure in on my last retrieve or whether it just spotted it hanging above the water, but it came out of the water and hit it with a vengeance, the reel getting caught on the side of the boat was his undoing, and mine as well, I was bit with the fishing bug.
Back then we still had the blue laws and all the stores were closed on Sundays, but Monday afternoon I walked out of Sears & Roebucks with two rods and two spin cast push button reels, a tackle box full of fishing tackle and a twelve foot v-bow car topper aluminum boat, it damned near cost me a divorce.
That fall I was invited to go fresh water fishing on Cape Cod for the last week of fishing season, most of the fishing was going to be for trout on the hundred foot deep kettle ponds cause by the glaziers, the water is cold and the trout hold over and are fighters, the spin cast reels were great for bass fishing from the boat, but he bowl shaped ponds on the Cape require that you wade in as far as you can with hip boots or waders and cast your line about a hundred yards to get the bait over the lip of the bowl and into the deeper water.
In those days Gov. Sergeant of Ma. ran a big sporting goods store in Brewster MA., most of the guys that were fishing where we were including my host were using Mitchell 300's, so after a quick trip to the Governor's store so was I, those two reels have fished hard with minimum maintenance for 50 out of the last 55 years that I've owned them and never experienced one failure, and now with just a good cleaning and lube they are ready to go for more years than I have left I'm sure.