The 506 was designed by ABU as a spinning reel to be used on those lightweight single handed spinning rods originally favoured by continental and American anglers. It became very popular with match anglers (myself included) in the nineteen seventies and was used mainly for ‘fast-biting’ fish such as roach and dace. Standard fixed spool reels of the time relied on the bale arm flicking over to wind in the line – sometimes this didn’t happen smoothly and a lost coil of line would result in a momentary slackening of your line which on occasions would also result in lost fish. The main advantage of the 506 was that it had two line pick-ups which prevented this from happening. One of the disadvantages – as has already been mentioned – was that the clutch (operated by reversing the winding handle) was not suited to the use of fine lines, so most anglers removed the anti-reverse pawl and bigger fish could easily be played by back-winding. Line could also get under the spool and result in ‘cracking-off’ - ABU tried to cure this by introducing chenille trims to the spools of later models - although even this modification wasn’t entirely successful. The other annoying disadvantage of these reels was due to the very shallow spools – after playing a larger fish, line would ‘bed-in’ and the next cast required the angler to pull line off the spool especially when using lightly shotted float rigs. Reel design improved and on later fixed-spool reels, you could push the bale arm over manually – when this feature came about I stopped using my 506’s and all four of them eventually went on Ebay. Like all old items of fishing tackle, they are fun and nostalgic to use. However in my opinion, manufacturers such as Shimano and Daiwa have incorporated significant technological improvements and their products are subsequently superior to those of forty years ago.
