old Roddy reel 966r recomendations

Goddy ?

Could you mean Roddy ??



Probably a 1970s stamped steel Japanese import knockoff of the Mitchell 300. Lots of reels like that were made by various companies, very very few are worth putting a dollar into. I believe the Roddy's were made by Penn.

i have the same reel, but mine is a berkley. it has a heart in the logo. if you take it all apart you can flipe it lefty to righty. kind of funny i wanted to put it on an old roddy rod. mine still has the big chunk of felt drag. im not sure if the drag can be upgraded. drilling did cross my mind.

[quote=steelfish;6479524[/quote]

Here's some info on Roddy reels:

The Roddy reels were being manufactured by one of then co-owners of Penn, Master Rod Co. (Penn has since changed ownership). They carried the Penn name as part of the partnership but they were not under Penn's manufacturing jurisdiction as per the sales representative we deal with. Since they were not being manufactured by Penn directly...Penn will not have a supply of these parts.

The above quote applies only to more recently produced reels.
The Roddy 966 pictured was made in Japan sometime in the 1960's, and various sizes of the "middle of the road" series were extremely popular from about 1961 to 1969, at least on the west coast.
BTW, parts for Roddy reels of this vintage can still be readily obtained at "Just Fishing by Pete" in Redondo Beach, CA. [hope that's OK to mention]
Owner of Roddy at the time was Jerry Rodstein, and interestingly, his rod production manager was Leon Todd, now owner/chief designer of Cal-Star rods.
Rodstein stopped using the "Roddy" name in the late 1960's due to a legal issue, and did not start using it again for almost 30 years.
As someone else mentioned, once Roddy ceased to exist, the reels were sold under both the Berkley and Heddon brands, usually in a "mist green" color.
In the meantime, Rodstein formed the tackle company now known as "Master", along with several other extremely successful non-fishing businesses for several decades.
When the Henze family decided to sell Penn in 2003, Rodstein formed a partnership with Dick Henry [founder of major distributor Henry's Tackle] to buy it, but were forced to sell for personal reasons less than 3 years later.
Rodstein still owns and operates Master tackle, including Roddy branded items.
There was about a 3 year period from 2003 to 2006 where Rodstein was involved with ownership of both companies.

Hey Guys,

I've also recently come into possession of one these Roddy 966 reels.

Can anyone recommend what line size I should use?

I was thinking 15lb mono should be ok, but obviously don't want to destroy the reel if it's rated to 6lb or something.

I ahve endlessly searched the net for this and this forum is the only information I can find on the reel at all.

Cheers,

Trent