hardy viscount MK III

[dpenrod]

looking for opinions on the hardy viscount MK III, click pawl for 5/6 wt. lines. not familiar with hardy reels. any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Avalon]

Dear dpenrod,

I own two actual Hardy reels a "Featherweight" and an "LRH" from their lightweight series. Both are somewhat old, perhaps 20 years old or so.

I also own a Sage 505 reel that as I understand was built by Hardy. It too is somewhat old.

None of those reels have ever given me a lick of trouble, ever! If you feel you are getting the Viscount MKII at a good price I say get it, you won't be disappointed.

Best Wishes,
Avalon

[Bamboozle]

dpenrod:

I can also heartily recommend Hardy with more than a few in my collection. The Viscount IS a discontinued model so you should be able to get a good deal.

I PM'd you a link to one discounted seller.

[BH Spey]

I picked up a 7/8 wt Viscount MK III with spare spool a few years ago with the intention of using it for great lakes steelhead and salmon. The first morning out on my fall salmon fishing trip the pawl ground all the teeth off the center sprocket/gear. I switched to the spare spool for the afternoon and proceeded to grind all the teeth off that sprocket/gear as well. I returned the reel to Cortland (Hardy's US distributor) and ended up getting a JLH 8/9 to replace it. After landing many, many salmon with the reel there is no detectable wear of any kind.

I don't know if Hardy just had a bad batch of sprocket/gears and I happened to get two, or if the problem was more wide spread amoungst that particular line. I do know that the problem hasen't shown up in any of the Marquis, Lightweight, or JLH reels I own. I am currently am down to 5 Hardys (all spring and pawl design)and they are probably my favorite line of reels. I personally wouldn't buy another Viscount though.

Probably NOT what you wanted to hear.

Good luck