The exploding popularity of salt water fly fishing brought a whole new world in terms of reels. The corrosiveness of salt water, the size and strength of the fish, AND the ability of the rod material to stand up easily to both, called for a whole new concept in reels, top to bottom. The only demand, apparently, was and is that they be round and have a handle. For weight, balanced on an incredibly light rod even at heavy-weight line sizes and fish, they had to be aluminum…or something synthetic. For strength and rigidity they had to be one piece framed. This meant new alloys and machined barstock rather than cast. For corrosion resistance and further durability, they were hard anodized which strengthened the basic alloy integrally and deeper than a surface paint or coat. The bragging point of the reel would be it’s serious, completely re-designed drag. Computer age design, machining, materials, tolerances…this was a century and light years way from the old, hand crafted British tradition.
The problem of line abrasion on the reel, not much of a problem in the first place with weight forward line and double-haul-and-shoot casting, was solved more as an afterthought in addressing corrosion resistance with hard anodizing.. Very few salt water designed and dedicated reels EVER appeared with, or needed, a line guard. And all of that new technology and metallurgy was available retroactively for fresh water reels.
Orvis, built and still based on handmade bamboo rods, slowly embraced fiberglass as a necessity and nod to the middle class. Noblesse oblige. The graphite image they could warm up to although for decades their graphite rods remained the slowest, most bamboo-like of all the manufacturers. And, Orvis was slow to embrace salt water fly fishing…since bamboo historically had no place there….and never would. But a fine graphite rod, even a fine, slow action graphite rod, COULD be matched with a fine, British tradition reel. And the same reel, if special enough, COULD be hung on an Orvis bamboo rod. Orvis decided to go all in.
In 1971 Orvis introduced the CFO reel, built by House of Hardy. It was based upon an old 1890’s American design. Charles F. Orvis patented the world’s first ventilated reel in 1873. Ventilating reel components rapidly caught on on both sides of the Atlantic to a degree that it’s origin as uniquely American was largely lost. Ventilating caught on because American fly fishing in the late 19th century and early 20th century introduced and promoted shorter, one handed rods apart from the heavier, European two handed rod tradition. Shorter rods demanded lighter reels. The Hardy Perfect and it’s genre were initially designed of solid brass or nickel silver, soft and heavy. The spool was solid. Reducing the weight of the reel for lighter rods meant using a lighter base metal, auminum, softer than both brass or nickel silver, or a change in design, ventilating all those flat surfaces. Or both. Even the Hardy Perfect evolved into a ventilated spool. But ventilation reduced strength. Ventilated cast aluminum would be the least expensive, least durable of all options. Hardy produced some machined barstock aluminum reels, stronger and more durable, as early as 1890 and thereafter maintained lines of both. Bamboo fragility protected all reels to a degree.