The Peux Fulgor Fly Reel does away with the handle. Pull the lever on the reel face and a geared train spins the spool for you, recovering as much as three meters of line in a single stroke, so you can gather slack without ever taking a hand off the rod. That is the whole argument for a semi-automatic reel, and Peux builds the most thoroughly engineered one available. The company started in the Ticino valley of Switzerland in the mid 1990s, when precision mechanic and fly angler Francis Nydegger set out to make a reel that recovered line faster than anything else, and it now operates as part of Junod and Clerc Mecanique. The Fulgor is aimed at competition and euro nymph anglers, at drift boat fishing where loose coils find your feet at the worst moment, and at anglers who want line management handled with one hand rather than two.
Design
The Fulgor is a full cage reel, which matters more here than on a conventional trout reel: thin euro leaders slip between spool and frame on open cage designs, and the closed cage rules that out. The retrieve lever is long enough to suit a wide range of hand sizes and moves smoothly through its stroke. The reel foot is swivel mounted, so you can rotate the body and set the lever angle where your hand naturally falls. Spool removal is a press and unclip system: push the spool off its hub from the inside out and it comes free in a second, though seating it again takes two hands and some patience. Two sizes cover the range, the Fulgor 1 at 67 x 35 x 28 mm for line weights 2 through 4 and the Fulgor 2 at 74 x 40 x 28 mm for 5 through 6. One design note worth knowing before you buy: the drag knob sits at the center of the spool on the same side as the retrieve lever, which makes it awkward to reach mid fight, and the full cage means you cannot palm the rim for extra resistance.
Finish
The reel is anodized, and Peux runs the anodizing as a made to order option rather than a fixed colorway, offering twelve colors across both reels and spools: Black, Steel Grey, Grey/Blue, Electric Blue, Bleu Azur, Salmon Orange, Pale Pink, Sockeye Red, Kelly Green, Byzantine Violet, Gold and Champagne. Trident stocks the Black, Grey/Blue and Electric Blue finishes. In our own testing the anodizing read as clean and sharp, and the exposed gearing against a colored frame gives the reel a mechanical look that no other trout reel matches. Peux does not publish an anodizing type or coating thickness, and does not make any corrosion rating claim for the finish.
Materials
Every part is machined and hand assembled at the Swiss workshop, with no plastic and no cast components anywhere in the reel. The frame, spool and lever are machined aluminum; the retrieve gearing visible through the frame is brass, chosen for a hard wearing gear train that meshes quietly. Peux does not publish alloy designations for the aluminum or the gears, so treat those as unstated rather than assumed.
Drag
Type - a stacked disc drag, adjusted by the knob at the center of the spool. It is genuinely useful rather than decorative, running roughly 2.2 turns from open to locked and producing three to four pounds of pressure at the top of the range in our testing, which is ample for trout and well matched to light tippet. Peux specifies that it can be adjusted during a fight to fine tune pressure in real time. Loosening it takes a little care, since turning the knob also turns the spool unless you hold the spool still. Peux does not describe the drag as sealed, and our review of the reel found the internal components exposed, so this is a freshwater reel and we do not recommend it in salt.
Materials - Peux calls the stacked disc material an original in house formula and does not name the compound. What the company does commit to is behavior in the wet: it states the stack keeps its feel and rotational smoothness in very humid or rainy conditions, at any drag setting. On the outgoing run the reel gives a crisp audible click; the incoming retrieve is a soft whir rather than a traditional clicker.
Arbor Size
The reel ships on its standard spool, which is a conventional arbor sized for a full fly line and useful backing: WF4 plus 50 m of 20 lb backing on the Fulgor 1, and WF5 plus 80 m of 20 lb backing on the Fulgor 2. Peux also builds a special nymph spool as a separate accessory, and that one is a true large arbor with a V shaped profile that feeds line to the center of the spool for even lay. On the Fulgor 1 the nymph spool measures 66 x 45 x 28 mm and holds 20 m of backing plus a 0.55 mm silk line, or 250 m of 0.20 mm nylon; the Fulgor 2 version measures 74 x 52 x 28 mm and holds 30 m of backing plus the same silk, or 300 m of nylon. Our testing of the nymph spool put it at 2.6 inches in diameter, 0.9 inches wide, with a 1.8 inch arbor picking up about 6.45 inches per spool revolution. The large arbor is the right choice for euro nymphing, where mono memory is the enemy and the assisted retrieve handles line speed anyway.
Warranty
Every Peux reel carries a lifetime warranty, which the company has applied to its reels since January 1, 2023. Peux frames the coverage as maintaining or repairing the reel for as long as you own it, and the work is done at the Swiss workshop. As of August 2026, Peux publishes no list of exclusions, no service fee schedule and no claim procedure on its warranty page, so before sending a reel in, contact the factory directly at [email protected] to confirm the process and budget for international shipping to Switzerland.
More Info
- Best for: freshwater only, euro nymphing, competition fishing and drift boat work
- Sizes: Fulgor 1 for line weights 2 to 4, Fulgor 2 for line weights 5 to 6
- Weight: 145 g for the Fulgor 1 and 162 g for the Fulgor 2 as published by Peux; our review weighed a Fulgor 1 at 6.3 oz with the nymph spool fitted, which helps balance a 10 or 11 foot euro rod
- Arbor Size: standard on the included spool, large arbor on the optional nymph spool
- Retrieve: semi-automatic lever, up to three meters of line per pull
- Hand: built as a right hand or left hand model at the factory rather than converted in the field. Trident stocks right hand
- Made in Switzerland, machined and hand assembled by Peux
- Ships in a Peux hard protective case
- Peux offers a crank handle kit, a removable line guide, additional standard and nymph spools, and custom engraving as separate accessories
