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Mitchell 300 reel old school

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€8 from the charity shop - the reel, not the barbel

It does sometimes fail though

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Just realised that this is a different reel. £7 from an auction in N.I.
 
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Gerry Giles said:
Only picture I have with my 300`s in the back ground they were state of the art at that time and I was young lol
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And on the ground Derek, a groundsheet “unhooking Mat “.....I used to use wet hessian sacks but read another thread on here and some would have you think it’s a fairly new phenomenon
 
Robert Linwood said:
Do the 300s have a decent clutch
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only if you put a teflon washer either side of the spring then they are good biggest problem was they dont have a roller in the bail are my old mate Len Arbury used to convert them and make them a roller think Mitchell then found out and copied the idea and bought out the 410 sadly Dear old Len passed away recently 😥
 
Even without the upgrades the old Mitchell is good enough for anything likely to be found in the UK except the larger wels catfish. Richard Walker landed his 44lb carp on a half-bail Mitchell and Chris Yates landed a 51lb 8oz carp on an Ambidex which has similar clutch.

They sold twenty million so they must have had something going for them.
 
I have a pair of 300's I use regularly, they are easily up to any Barbel you are likley to hook, if you are thinking about a first "go" they may seem a little strange at forst, as the bail arm moves anti clockwise as opposed to clockwise like more modern reels do . As has already been said , the clutch is fine after a bit of "fettling" . The line lay can be a bit suspect at times, but not enough to worry me.

Here you go....
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David
 
Funnily enough I spooled my 300A up this morning with new 6lb line ....would like a mint Mitchell match as well
 
I used them in the 70s to early 80s carping round the Kent pits,smashing reels in their day,almost bombproof imo apart from the tweek Gerry mentioned
 
I have several Mitchels including a couple of 300's and a Match that haven't been used for years but never had a problem with them except the lack of free spool which was important for me ;)
would be happy to sell too;)
 
300's did me a great service ... they taught me how to play fish 'off the handle' 😆 Even now, using Shimmys with clutches that I know I can trust, I'll still have the anti-reverse off when the fight gets a bit hairy. 'Off the handle' is almost as good as playing a good fish on a 'pin, and the method comes into its own when snag fishing (IMO). In some situations even a great clutch will give a little, and then suddenly give too much more ... just when you can't afford it to. Plus when you're playing a fish off the handle you can give line to a fish going in the direction you want (e.g. away from a snag) whereas a clutch wouldn't do that unless slackened off, and I leave my clutch set for the line on the spool. Old school I s'pose.
 
Used mine for chub fishing until it was stolen about 10 years ago - obviously still a market for them then - replaced by insurance company with the newer version, which remains in its box.
 
Out of nostalgia I bought one about 18 years ago off eBay for chub, which was in cosmetically excellent condition. Being left handed I'd struggled to find a good one (a 301) and it looked and felt great, but I thought it best to send it off for a full service prior to use. About a week later I received a parcel .... containing a brand new, different coloured reel, with its model number stuck on its side via bits of plastic (instead of being inscribed in white script). Apoplectic, I rang them up, only to be informed that they hadn't got the parts to service my 301 so had 'kindly' given me their super-duper new version instead. I insisted they return my 301, serviced or not, but they said it had been binned. I asked them to send me an old 301 when they could get hold of one but they never did. Maybe 'my' reel is in a display case somewhere :rolleyes:
BTW.. IIRC the 300 series was lower geared than the 400 series, so were much easier to play fish with 'off the handle'. I also had a 411 (a left handed 410, again IIRC), and a left handed 'Match'. Both great reels ... for their time.
 
If you are still after a 301 Terry , I have half a dozen on the shelf all serviceable . I think the 300's are brilliant reels , yes the clutches are a bit iffy , but they can be smoothed out as it were . I still use them on occasion but tend to use my ABU Cardinal 54's more these days
 
If you’re after a retro fixed spool then a Cardinal beats the pants off a Mitchell 300 in my opinion. far, far better clutch, rotor head spins the right way, lovely green or metallic brown paint job, much smoother and freer winding mechanism, more useful sizing options.....

I could go on.

I have several of both the Mitchells and Abu but only generally use the later. A 44 in green is a lovely little reel. Slightly more expensive in the metallic brown they did and arguably a nicer colour. I also have a 77 which is mint and unused. The best size of all for barbel would probably be the middle sizes 66. They even did a 33 which is the most tiny diddy little thing you ever did see, not to mention frightfully expensive, and married up to a suitably small and light rod would make the perfect small streaming set up.

The only thing I think the Mitchell beats the Abu on is line lay, having a much slower reciprocation rate and thus spreading the line more evenly, but even this don’t seem to make much difference in the end.

If I could only choose one vintage fixed spool then it would be the Abu.
 
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