This design harks back to the raised-pillar reels from Sharpes and Hardy my grandfather and his uncles used on their cane rods. This is the 5/6 model for #5 or #6 lines; 278 refers to the spool diameter, 2 and 7/8ths inches. The sample came fitted with a Cortland Sylk line and aesthetically that looks about right – when I pick this up I feel there should be a silk line on the spool and a cane rod waiting for me.

It is rather well made, too. The frame and spool are machined anodised aluminium, nickel silver pillars and screws, ivorine handle. Touches there of the link between Charles Clemes and its parent company Anderson Wheeler, who use nickel silver screws in gun making.

The adjustable spring and pawl clicks in both directions, louder going out than in, and the pressure can be adjusted with the wee brass wheel by the reel foot. The clicking pawl hides how smoothly the spool turns on its ball race and phosphor bronze bearing, which is the point of a ‘check’, this needs that pawl clicking into its cog or the spool would just spin and tangle the line.

Where a vintage reel in this style would have a tiny arbour in the centre of the spool, this has a ‘quarter arbour’, bulking it up slightly so I turn the handle just a few less revolutions when I bring in the line. Where a vintage reel of similar design would probably have nothing but a handle on the face plate, the designers of this reel have opted to pander to modern tastes by matching the handle with a counterweight sunk into the face; nice place for an owner’s name to be engraved and, who knows, maybe the fish of a lifetime will take line fast enough to make it count.

As a working reel, this has nooks and crannies where mud and grit will get trapped. The wee check adjuster is fiddly, changing spools is anything but quick and in any case I have no idea if spare spools are even made. I doubt if any of that matters one iota.

This is clearly a functional reel and I would have no qualms about fishing with it. Far from it. Each Clemes 278 comes in a heavy wooden, leather lined display case, the reel carefully placed, handle up, in the centre. When I came to use the 278, lifting the reel from its case then slipping it into its soft leather pouch began to feel like a ritual. Same at the end of a fishing day, checking the reel for dirt, wiping it down and replacing it in its case was all part of the rite.

Given the price and the fact that Charles Clemes will only make 40 reels a year, some may go to collectors, some will be presentation gifts, and this will always be an exotic reel.