Since I live along Lake Michigan, my fishing consists of casting lures for salmon and trout from a long cement fishing pier when they move in along the shore. Tackle required consists of 9’ rods with good spinning reels and 20 lb braid to enable long casts and subsequent leverage to fight and get them landed. Even though I would like to catch one using a vintage Johnson reel, the vintage Johnson spin cast reels I collect are not up to the task of catching these fish. Skip suggested I try a Fiskar II which I have. It cast well but the short handle made the retrieve burdensome. So I recently acquired a nice Johnson Chariman 830 spinning reel. I must say, it seems to be a pretty nice reel. Based on the “J†logo on the spool I believe it was made by the Johnson Reel Company and was manufactured in Hong Kong as indicated on the reel foot. It is pretty heavy and spins very smoothly. The spool says it will hold 143 yards of 15 lb mono so it should have no problem handling 150 yards of 20 lb braid. The bail when open returns back to the closed position during the retrieve effortlessly without the common little stutter or what I call a hiccup or catch a lot of spinning reels seem to have. The only thing that seems a little suspect is the drag. I don’t have a schematic so only took the spool off to look at the drag system. At the back of the spool on the shaft are a couple of small composite discs. Inside the front of the spool are mounted a couple of metal disks under a split ring. I didn’t take them out. Then comes a numbered plastic disk and finally the drag knob which tightens everything down. It also has a clicker which you can see on the inside of the spool. I can’t wait to try this reel and if I am lucky enough to catch a salmon while using it, I will definitely post a picture of it along with a vintage Johnson reel!