A fishing reel is a hand-cranked reel used in angling to wind and stow fishing line, typically mounted onto a fishing rod, but may also be used on compound bows or crossbows to retrieve tethered arrows when bowfishing.
An Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 AD) stone tablet, currently displayed at the Xuzhou Art Museum of Han Stone Gravings, with engravings depicting an angling rod with a wheel-like device (lower right corner)
"Angler on a Wintry Lake," painted in 1195 by Ma Yuan
The Art of Angling, first published in 1651, is the first English language book to cite the use of fishing reels.
'Nottingham' and 'Scarborough' reel designs.
A crank is an arm attached at a right angle to a rotating shaft by which circular motion is imparted to or received from the shaft. When combined with a connecting rod, it can be used to convert circular motion into reciprocating motion, or vice versa. The arm may be a bent portion of the shaft, or a separate arm or disk attached to it. Attached to the end of the crank by a pivot is a rod, usually called a connecting rod (conrod).
A compound crank
Hand crank on a pencil sharpener
Tibetan operating a quern (1938). The upright handle of such rotary handmills, set at a distance from the centre of rotation, works as a crank.
Roman crank handle from Augusta Raurica, dated to the 2nd century AD
