Mitchell Reel Forum

Well, I had to use a different Mitchell reel and pole the other day. My normal freshwater poles were 50 miles 1 way to fetch them. Not in the cards. I looked under the spool where I attach a label of line weight and date. For my reference on what size fish to target since Mitchell makes those quick-change spools. 10lb XXX Spider mono 5-3-2015. Since I'm only after pan fish and line never sees daylight, I left it on the spool. When we reached our fishing spot, I had prepped my pole and casted the bait out into the water. Reeled the line slack up but the bail wouldn't close all the way. Same scenario the next few hours of fishing so I manually closed the bail to reel in the fish each time. Put the pole to the side to work on the reel bail another day upon arriving home. Today was the day. I loosened the spring side screw a little and the bail worked as it should. Tighten back down and it bound up. I had oiled it 2 days ago to let it penetrate to free the bail up, thinking it was crudded up. Nope. Loosened the other side and it worked great. Tighten back down and it bound up. I then loosened that screw again a little and inspected how parallel the bail cup was to the spool. I noticed it was slightly at an angel. I removed the screw completely and gently moved the cup to the side to get a pair of needle nose pliers to grab the cup. Bent the cup to straighten the bail wire out and put screw back in. Bail is now nice and "snappy". 1st time in a long time I have had to work on my reels to correct a problem and not maintenance. Hope you all have a great 4th of July!!!!!!!!!!!
Kim

I just finished doing the same thing to a Mitchell 900 that I just got off of eBay. I was told that the 900 had a problematic bail closing system but it turned out to be some old grease and a slightly bent bail wire. So now I have a nice 900 that I bought really cheaply to add to the collection.