After the busy summer and early autumn fishing seasons, many anglers will look to reduce their time on the water over the colder months, and some don’t even bother to go fishing until spring returns.
Winter is therefore a suitable time to get your expensive reels serviced, respool them with fresh line, check and repair damaged rods and clean out the tackle box to restock with shiny new hooks and other tackle.
If you are like me, you have a small fortune invested in your fishing tackle, and it pays to look after it so it can repay you every time you hit the water and won’t let you down when connected to that big fish you have been dreaming of.
REELS
As we know, saltwater will destroy reels, and I highly recommend getting your reels serviced every year. If you fish a lot, you should even get them serviced more often!
This comes down to how well you look after your reels and how you clean them. Fresh water from the hose doesn’t really cut it, and you should use warm soapy water or a good salt-removing product; there are now many on the market to choose from, such as Desalt or The Salt Wash Company.
After washing, drying them down with a cloth or rag is also vitally important. You should always keep your reels as dry as possible; never store them in damp cupboards in the shed.
Other than submerged reels (often occurs when surfcasting), which should be serviced immediately, one of the worst places to keep your reels when travelling in the boat is the gunwales. The reels get saturated by waves and spray when under speed. It is therefore better to put them either up front in the cabin, up high in your rocket launcher, or in the bait station rod holders to reduce the risk.
RODS
With no moving parts like a fishing reel, most anglers would think, “nothing to do here” and put the rod away until the next trip. However, on the next trip out, we notice a build-up of salt around the guides and/or the reel seat. Often, a brownish rusty stain has appeared on the guide’s feet just under the clear epoxy.
This is all down to a lack of basic cleaning maintenance.
You may not realise what the combination of salt, sun and UV does to the clear epoxy over your guides. This combo is a rod-killer; it hardens and dries the epoxy around the guides, causing flaking and yellowing, which enhances corrosion.
Again, after each trip, you should remove the reel from the rod as salt builds up around the reel feet and the reel seat hoods. Then use warm, soapy water to help dissolve the salt with a warm, soapy cloth, and then use a removable shower head (which is best) to rinse off gently; if not, rinse down the best you can and carefully wipe off the rest.
At least, use a bucket of warm water with soapy liquid or salt remover like Desalt as mentioned for reels. It must be warmer water, as cold water will only transport the salt to other areas, while warm water helps melt it as the soapy water breaks it down.
Remember to wipe everything down to bone dry with a rag or towel. Just take care around the guides and not to bend anything.
Place the rod to dry off with plenty of air ventilation in a shaded place or simply wipe dry with a good micro fibre cloth.
CRACKED GUIDE CERAMICS
Before putting the rods away, do a visual inspection of the guides and, most importantly, the guide ceramics. What we are looking for is any damage that went unnoticed during the days fishing or the cleaning. Look for any tiny chips or cracks in the ceramics.
This is particularly important as chipped or cracked guide ceramics can go unnoticed until your next trip on the water, and you start getting broken and frayed line, which can be expensive when using braid.
Tips and guides would be the number one rod repair for most anglers, and they blame the braid as the reason for breaking, but the issue is a cracked or chipped tip or guide. For the sake of a $25 tip or $35 guide to be replaced, it is less expensive than a $60-$100 respool that wasn’t needed.
Sinkers, swivels, or jig heads are the main cause for the tip ceramic getting damaged from anglers winding them up, so they hit the tip. Remember the tips use a hard but easily damaged ceramic.
A good idea to help prevent this is to put a soft lumo bead between the swivels, jig heads or hook and the tip when winding right up to the top guide. It pays to look after and check your rods because if you finally hook that big fish with dodgy guides, it will bust off, and you have lost that potential PB fish!
LUBRICANTS HELP
After cleaning my reels, rods and tackle with soapy water and drying off with a towel, I use a good lubricant such as Inox or Lanox to help keep my reels running smoothly and prevent corrosion. Use a rag to wipe away excess lubricants and avoid spraying your mainline on reels.
Doing this helps keep your annual service bills down too.
Spraying down the hooks, closed and split rings on lures or any metal parts on tackle is also a good option to be able to reuse them on the next trip out.
Look after your gear and it will look after you when fishing.
THREE KEY POINTS:
1. Always wash down your reels and rods using warm soapy water or a salt removing product, then dry well.
- Store reels and tackle in dry places.
- Carefully check the rod guides and ceramics for any damage before fishing and never use a rod with cracked or damaged guides – you will lose line and fish!
