[Brookie]

Do McNeese reels share some common heritage with Seamaster? The McNeese reels sure look a lot like some Seamasters. We're the McNeese reels manufactured by Seamaster or anything like that? Just curious.

 

[JR SPEY]

Dave took his first generation Seamaster Tarpon to a machinist and asked how much the reel was worth just as a hunk of metal and other parts. I think he told me the answer was $87.00 and he decided to have one built. You all know the ending to this story as he was thousands of $$$ into it before he actually had a usable reel. I think it is the original McNeese Tarpon that came of it. I know that the spool from the Seamaster drops into the McNeese and seems like it'd actually work. The deal is that Dave used that Vespel "bearing" (actually a bushing) so therefore it wouldn't function correctly as the Seamaster used an actual bearing. That's a long-winded way of saying that Dave was inspired by the Seamaster and freely copied from its design as the original Seamasters (S-handled models) had been discontinued more than twenty years before Dave even got started. The reels of his that I've owned have been incredibly smooth and just downright gorgeous.

 

[sevilla315]

There's a small section of Dave McNeese in Trey Combs' Steelhead Fly Fishing book which is a classic and recently re released in soft cover at a much reduced price (I have a copy of the hard back).
I believe it mentions the reels and the origins there.