News came from factory rep Richard Hightower on Monday, December 29: Carl W. Newell has died of pneumonia in a convalescent hospital. Newell was one of the most important figures in southern California offshore and long range fishing. He was 86, and would have been 87 on January 17. His funeral was held today, December 30, at 12:30 pm.

A great innovator, he never finished high school, but Carl learned to build production items to a one-thousandth of an inch of accuracy. He made reels, parts for reels and many other products, including doggie doors and the inner workings of heart machines. He was a great fisherman of unorthodox methods.

"He loved good food and wine," remembered Hightower, who was Newell's right hand from 1983 on. "And he was a prankster and a kidder."

I asked Richard about the early days.

"He started manufacturing in 1952," said Hightower. "By 1968 he was making plastic pouches for trout and steelhead leaders, called Tangle-Frees. He used to fish in northern California a lot with his wife Sylvia. She caught more fish than he did, and he said it was because of the scent, or the lack of it, on her hands. He had a passion for steelhead."

Carl became famous for making parts for reels made by other manufacturers. He made them stronger, lighter and with closer tolerances. His reel spools made getting line past the edge of the spool and into the works a thing of the past. There was a period when virtually all the better saltwater fishermen used his "Newelled-out" reels.

He built reels first from black plastic (called "Blackies") in 1979, and then went to the PL-Series with aluminum parts in 1981. In 1984 he introduced the Graphite Series, which are still being made today.

"He was the first to make drastic changes in reel manufacturing," noted Hightower. "He believed in simplicity."

He also believed in short rods. Newell was convinced a 42-inch rod that had an elliptical bend into the handle was just about prefect for handling big tuna.

Newell asked Hightower once, "Richard, aren't you going to fish with my short rods?"

So Hightower took one, made a cast, got a fish. "Then I went back to my long rod," he said.

I fished with Carl Newell on several long range trips, to Guadalupe Island, The Ridge and the Revillagigedos Islands. I tried those short rods and found I could bring tuna to the boat in about half the time I needed with a longer lever.

Two other Newell innovations were the Newell Caster and Carl's "fighting belt."

The belt was a piece of conveyor belt material, just a rectangle cut from belting and suspended by straps like an apron. Carl said that was all he needed to control a 200-pound tuna, and I saw him catch many large yellowfin using it with very little apparent strain. I never saw anyone else use one.

The Newell Caster was another matter. It was an early form of wahoo bomb, with a plastic trolling head and a long skirt of heavy, rubbery plastic. He didn't put a spinner blade on it, and that made it much easier to reel at high speed. It was longer, bigger and lighter than other wahoo bombs, and to this day Richard Hightower still catches lots of wahoo with Newell Casters.

While fishing with Carl, I heard many stories about his youth. The first time he want salt water fishing he rode the streetcar from his home in Glendale one night to the docks in LA and went out for a day trip. He was so young and small he made the ride stretched out asleep in the luggage rack overhead.

"I had so much fun on that trip," remembered Carl, " that I went up and asked the captain how much a boat like this one cost. Then I started plotting how I could get $25,000 and get my own boat."

At one time I had every reel made by Newell. I felt that the ability to cast for distance and to apply power to the handle while grinding on a Newell reel were superior to anything else available. I suspect those reels are a great legacy. They may be around as long as single-speed reels are sold.

In his own way, Carl Newell was a giant among us. But he was also a simple, friendly and caring fisherman. There will not be another like him.