Quote Originally Posted by deathb4disco View Post
This is the exact situation where I've heard autos are favored. As I said before, this has been an interesting thread.
I'll add a little extra "interesting" to this thread :

My Grandfather had two flyrod/autoreel outfits ... and never did I see him "fly fishing" with them
He used them to Crappie fish with ... tightlining with minners !! He'd wait until the Crappie pulled the rod tip into the water, then hit the trigger on the auto to set the hook. Worked like a charm :p

Fast forward ... now I have them !! Both auto reels are put away as mementos, while both rods are rigged with reels (one BC & one Spinning), and used for fishing with a slipfloat/minner rig. It keeps my memory of him alive & well, since I owe my love of fishing to him & my Grandmother .... plus they've caught some brute Crappie for me, too. I'm sure that's something he'd be proud of, knowing that his rods were still catching Slabs.

And I actually DID use the rods/reels, "as is" ... for many years, after I inherited them. The fly line just got too old & worn out, and was too expensive to replace back then (when I was a poor boy). So I took it off, released the tension on the auto reels, & put them away. Then, a couple of decades later, after I had my fill of "Bassin" & got back into primarily Crappie fishing ... I rigged them with some extra reels I had lying around, and the rest is history.

The reels are :

South Bend Oren-O-Matic #1126 Model A
Martin Automatic Mohawk #8

... cp