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VFT9645
LIMITED EDITION BOUGLÉ REEL
Limited Edition fly reels, handbuilt in Alnwick, England in a run of 110 numbered reels - to commemorate 110 years since production of the first Bouglé reel.
In the early 1900s, Hardy's were approached by an extraordinarily flamboyant Frenchman, at that time almost unknown in England, whose name would become familiar to two generations of the firm's customers and would echo down even to our own time. His name was Louis Bouglé, and although he was well-known on the French tournament casting circuit, he only would only become famous in Britain after 1903, when William, John James, and Forster Hardy took him at his word and modified the Perfect reel to the Frenchman's exacting specifications.
Bouglé may have been eccentric, but he was an exceptionally skilled angler and his reputation was enough for the Hardy's to take a standard Perfect frame and patiently file it down to produce a lightweight variant. The new reel had an eye-catching design, with raised pillars and while it was unmistakably a Perfect, it was a very special one.
The very first Bouglé was a 3" reel listed in the 1903 catalogue, in which a note by William Hardy indicates that a 3¼" version was in the pipeline - the two sizes were listed right up to the outbreak of war in 1939.
The model presented here is the first ever 3 ¼ inch Bouglé to feature the prized 1912 check.
The 1912 pattern check is thought by many to be the most attractive of all the many different styles of check fitted to the Perfect reel, although the reason for its introduction was probably because owners had experienced trouble with the early mechanisms jamming in use. The new check introduced a 'floating' pawl, connected via a spring to a brass lever. As you can see from the artwork, a twist of the regulator was all that was needed to set the drag using this remarkably elegant mechanism.
Capacity with 20# backing - DT4+55M / WF5+60M / WF6+40M
RIGHT hand retrieve only.
Like new condition! Never used.
