I got up this morning and made a trip around the pond and caught a mess of bass for dinner tonight. Caught most of them on my dad's old vintage tackle. The Nip-O-Diddy and the rod are only about 40 years old, but I'm thinking that the Plueger Supreme baitcaster was made in the 30s and is over 80 years old. I remember that my dad said he bought it in a pawn shop in the early 50s, but I think was probably 10 or 15 years old by then. I found a brochure on the internet that shows this exact model being made in 1939, but I haven't found any way to date it closer than that.

It still works very well, and this 2 pound bass gave a good fight on it. It is definitely hard to get used to fishing with a reel with no anti-reverse on it.

The only issue I'm having with it is that the spool edges are worn and if I get a backlash, the line will get caught between the spool and the frame. I first tried a braid line, but it was really bad about getting in between the gap. I tried putting less than a full spool on it, and that helps some. I currently have a 17 lb fluorocarbon line on it, and works better than anything else I've tried. I'm not really up on the newer lines; what do you guys recommend that I try? It needs to be something that is stiff and has a large diameter, but will still cast ok. I only use it for fishing topwater baits of 5/8 oz or more, and the rod has plenty of action to get the lure started well on the cast.

I'm thinking of something like 25 lb Trilene XT, but is there a better option? Thanks for any ideas.

I have several old nip a diddie's that were my Dad's. I learned to throw a baitcaster on a reel similar to yours. Dad put braid on it because it was easier to get backlashes out. Look up different diameters of lines in your weight range and use the largest.

Berkeley Big Game, 25 or 30 test

The original lines on old bait casting reels were real thick braided lines that were multicolored. At least that’s what I saw on some of my grandads old reals in the seventies and at the time those reals were probably 30 yrs old.

Yeah, I started out baitcaster fishing with the old braided lines. Let me tell you, there was nothing good about them. By the time my father allowed me to use this reel, he had already bought one of the early Abu 5000 models, and one of the great things about it was that you could use mono in it. After I got to where I could fish decently well with this old Plueger, he gave me his first 5000 and bought himself a new one. He saw no reason to have 2 reels; you just change the bait if you wanna fish with something different. I can remember us setting off on a fishing trip 100 miles away with no other reels than the 2 5000s.

Thanks for the ideas on the line. The fluorocarbon I have on now is a Berkeley line; it actually works pretty well on it, but just needs to be a larger diameter.