Caring for your rods and reels.

[Dadwood]

I fish regularly with my brother in law. When I get home after each session I make a point of wiping down and drying each rod, and rinsing the reels in warm water and drying them. I regularly lubricate the reels and generally look after them as best I can. My brother in law on the other hand does no maintenance at all! He simply puts all his gear back in his shed and leaves it there till next fishing outing. He can't understand why I spend so much time 'fannying around with the gear' (as he puts it). He never checks his leader knots, never sorts through his tackle box, never checks the rod rings or reel seats - in fact he does nowt. But my point is;HE DON'T SEEM TO HAVE ANYMORE GEAR FAILURES THAN I DO. AND I CAN'T REMEMBER HIM EVER LOSING A DECENT FISH BECAUSE HIS GEAR LET HIM DOWN!! So who's right? Perhaps I ought to worry less about the gear and just abuse it. It still seems to serve well, regardless of whether or not it's looked after.

[MRG2000]

I`m with you on this one Dadwood , i like to keep my gear , clean tidy and well maintained , in my mind ,its time and money well spent , fishing gear aint cheap...

[Bluesbro]

I would still imagine that your gear would be in better nick than his. I would say that if yours and his rods were on a tripod and the wind was to blow it over, his rods are more likely to loose eyes. His rods are more likely to have reel seats jam up too. Im pretty sure your doing the right thing dad and you are carrying out a lot of preventative measures so your gear will be in tip top condition for the rest of it`s life.....Your friend however I should imagine will need to replace things more reguarly. How much difference it would have when into a fish I don`t know but I would say you have peace of mind that should that "Fish of a lifetime" get on you hook, your gear will be in its best condition to cope with the fight. Would your friend have that peace of mind? Would it affect the way he would play and land the fish? I dont know but it`s 1 less worry you would have.

There is nothing wrong with taking care of things that you own, it is a reflection of the person who owns them and I would say that it reflects well upon you, regardless of the stick you may get.

You keep on with the cleaning mate and be proud of what you have and the condition it is in.

Regrads

Joe

[chris.oldgit]

keep it up john, should you decide to sell any, for whatever reason, you'll get top dollar for it. takes only a few minutes of your time, leaves you with peace of mind as joe says.

[chazyboi]

same as you dad soapy water i hate mucky gear i take spools off reels and spray em with wd40 give em a wipe like new same with rods and eyes though for rod i spray it on cloth ,,,,and as joe says peace of mind you clean you can spot damage

[geejayy]

generally i hate cleaning,washing and tidying things , cars, houses etc, hence i tend to avoid it if possible. the easiest way to keep things clean and tidy is to not make them dirty or messy in the first place
my fishing gear i like to keep tidy but not nessacelery/nessacerally/neccaserily (bugger it take your pick you know what i mean)
clean.
fishing tackle is the same , rods get wiped down once a year if they are lucky,
reels get a good strip down about twice a year & relined as needed .
the tackle box gets a good sort through 2-3 times a year as the seasons change , rigs are tied and added to wallets as required,
most often the tackle box is just dumped in the corner till the next trip is on the horizon, if i think about it the reels get dragged out and rinsed & dryed first but most often not.
i'm not obsesive about haveing shiney unmarked rods n reels they are tools that get used and as such get scratched and chipped, though just lately i've been investing in some neoprene reel bags to help stop this as mostly its haveing them bounce about in my tackle box that does this damage.

you'd think that perhaps with this attitude my reels get battered and don't last five minutes, but most models i use run for about 10years before getting beyond it , 7ht's, shakey presidents( even with those fragile side plates),
abu 6500, 8years so far , all get/got used hard, hell some tackle tarts change reels every time the models released in new colours

i quite enjoy stripping them down and service/repairing them , especially daiwa they just never seem to want to die

[lazy hooker]

Originally Posted by geejayy

generally i hate cleaning,washing and tidying things , cars, houses etc, hence i tend to avoid it if possible. the easiest way to keep things clean and tidy is to not make them dirty or messy in the first place
my fishing gear i like to keep tidy but not nessacelery/nessacerally/neccaserily (bugger it take your pick you know what i mean)
clean.
fishing tackle is the same , rods get wiped down once a year if they are lucky,
reels get a good strip down about twice a year & relined as needed .
the tackle box gets a good sort through 2-3 times a year as the seasons change , rigs are tied and added to wallets as required,
most often the tackle box is just dumped in the corner till the next trip is on the horizon, if i think about it the reels get dragged out and rinsed & dryed first but most often not.
i'm not obsesive about haveing shiney unmarked rods n reels they are tools that get used and as such get scratched and chipped, though just lately i've been investing in some neoprene reel bags to help stop this as mostly its haveing them bounce about in my tackle box that does this damage.

you'd think that perhaps with this attitude my reels get battered and don't last five minutes, but most models i use run for about 10years before getting beyond it , 7ht's, shakey presidents( even with those fragile side plates),
abu 6500, 8years so far , all get/got used hard, hell some tackle tarts change reels every time the models released in new colours

i quite enjoy stripping them down and service/repairing them , especially daiwa they just never seem to want to die

very similar to me
rods get a wipe down with a wet wipe.

reels i'm not a great one for running them under the tap....if you get water in a bearing then your next session will turn to rats poo as the water superheats and birdies each cast...much better imo to leave them a little dirty and clean them ever 3 months

rig wallet holds 40 rigs which i have a mammouth rig tieing session 2 or 3 times a year...depening how many get sacrificed in the rough.

the rest is cleainsh but not sparkling

[tjnorton]

I also clean my reels had to many go wrong. I also feel alot of it is a confidence thing knowing that fishing gear will always be in good condition.

tj

[mackfish]

i suppose it depends on the cost of your gear, if you spent a lot of money on it, you will of course take good care of it.
whereas, if you didnt, you wouldnt really bother with cleaning it all the time!