Mitchell Reel Forum

Hello,
I have found a spare spool that I believe comes from a Mitchell reel.
As I would love to buy the reel, I would like to know the model. Unfortunately no information comes from the spool itself apart from 'made in France' and right/droiter on the top.
Many thanks,

Hoisk, Welcome to the Mitchell Reel Museum! (MRM).

What you have is what is known as a "Cartridge Spool". These were spools that were originally included in-the-box with a new Mitchell 300 reel as sort of a promotional item in European countries. Some say the first cartridges that came in the reel box, came pre wound with Starlon fishing line. Later, cartridges were sold separately as an accessory, with Garcia Bonnyl or Royal Bonnyl fishing line.

I think what the cartridge system did is provide the owner with a special spindle that allowed you to drop in various cartridges with different types of line. You could then buy a pre-wound cartridge separately spooled with fresh various line diameters. Not having to buy the entire spool assembly, spindle, spool shell, and etc., to get fresh line, costs less and made changing line even more convenient. They even had small plastic spool cases that said MITCHELL CARTRIDGE on the cover instead of LARGE OR SMALL.

Kind Regards,
Bill
P.S. The spring assembly you show in your photo is upside down. The little legs on the spring always go up.

Many thanks for your answer.
Looking forward to acquire my first Mitchell.

I thought that looked familiar. Wife and I visited a Fish Show back in 2008. Lots of Mitchell at very good prices. Talked to a guy that had these. Bought this complete set in box. The idea as stated you buy these in size line for your Mitchell reel. Remove hardware from a spool and put on these. Fully loaded with line. Either right or left-handed reel. Name goes up for proper reel. Then go fishing.
Kim

Thanks everyone! I assume it is refillable and reusable.

Hoisk wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 4:56 am Thanks everyone! I assume it is refillable and reusable.

Hoisk,
It seems to me what Mitchell and or Garcia were trying to do, was sell more of their brand(s) of fishing line. They may have also been trying to make changing line more convenient for the fisherman with a plug-and-play type set-up. They may or may not have been trying to cut down on the wasted plastic spool you get, and still do, when you buy new line. Wish we had something like that today in our throw away world.

Looking at it from a fisherman's point of view, I would not want to use the cartridge for fishing. What can go wrong with fishing line? Line abrasion and friction. As the line goes out on a cast and as the line comes in during the retrieve, is where it happens and I am not even talking about the rod line guides. Many fishing reel manufacturers today do all kind of things to keep line abrasion and friction to a minimum using super slick materials on the front lip of the spool and roller line guides on the bail. Same goes for rod manufactures and their line guides.

That front spool lip see's a lot of line rubbing on it during use. That translates into line wear in my opinion. For me, I want the front spool lip as smooth as possible to protect my line and it's hard to get that from worn plastic parts. Personally, I always select a Mitchell spool that is new or made out of alloy or metal to fish with. The one exception to metal and or alloy Mitchell spools would be when fishing salt water. When fishing salt water I use a new Mitchell carbon fiber spool and remove the spool shell after fishing and rinse it in fresh water.
Just my
Kind Regards,
Bill

Mates,
Wanted to share these images.

This Advertisement from the 1969 Garcia Catalog
This ad from the 1969 Garcia Fishing Annual. Note that Garcia did not recognize this as a Mitchell product. Bonnyl Line(blue)
This ad from the 1970 Garcia Fishing Annual. Looks like Mitchell spoke to Garcia as this is now shown as a Garcia Mitchell product. Bonnyl Line(blue)
The 1971 & 1972 Garcia Fishing Annuals (1972 shown) ran this ad. Royal Bonnyl Line (Brown) Kind Regards,
Bill

Mates,

I hope you enjoyed the Garcia Fishing Annual ads regarding cartridge spools in my last post.

I wanted to mention that you need to be careful about the content of some Garcia advertisements and I forgot to mention this in my last post.

Over the years there have been errors found on Garcia ad renderings and they have caused a bit of confusion.

If you noticed the 1969 Garcia Fishing Annual ad (In my last post) of the cartridge spool that did not mention Mitchell, it is quite possible that the rendering shown was never sold in stores. Does anyone actually have one of these? I have never seen one so I don't know if that version was actually sold or not. I should think it would be rare if it does exist.

We have seen this type of thing before in Garcia ads for Mitchell 300 reels and what was shown in the Annual or Catalog was not what it looked like in the store.

I hope to post more images of cartridge spools, as soon as I get time, so stay tuned if you are interested.
Kind Regards,
Bill