Reel Care and Servicing – By Dave Hardy, Lee Longs Tackle Shop

Whether you know a lot about reels or nothing at all, this is a good refresher about reel care and servicing. It’s also a bit of ‘food for thought’ when purchasing your future reel/s.

GOOD PRACTICE to care for your reels (in between servicing):

–          DO rinse your reel in fresh water after every trip (garden hose is ok, but even better would be to rinse in the shower as the warm/hot water helps to dissolve any salt)

–          DO lubricate your reels after every few trips

–          DO have a cover on your reel when not in use

–          DON’T place your reel face down in the dirt when you’re taking a photo of you and your fish (you laugh, but it happens!)

–          DON’T submerse reel in either salt or fresh water (if possible)

With regards to servicing, you should look at getting your reels serviced at the end of every season. For example, when it starts to get too cold for barra fishing, look at getting your barra reels serviced then. If left un-serviced, component corrosion may start to be an issue.

When purchasing your next reels, there are some questions that you need to ask yourself:

–          How well do I look after my current fishing tackle? (ie. Does it still look new? / Does it look not too bad? / Does it look like it’s been dragged down the road?)

–          Did I get my reels serviced last season?

–          How often do I go fishing with each reel?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you should have a pretty good idea of the type of reel that you should purchase (ie. Budget / Mid-Range / Expensive). Bottom line is, purchase a reel that matches how you treat it, and how often you use it. Buying expensive reels is nice and having nice gear is great, but for a lot of applications, it’s not necessary.

For example, you buy a $500-$800 baitcaster, fish with it for a season and then forget to service it at the end. Come next season, you take it out of storage to start fishing its second season, only to find a number of bearings have corrosion issues. Thus, resulting in a trip to your local tackle shop with the request to have your reel serviced.Fingers crossed it can be a quick turn-around, so you don’t miss too much of the season. As the saying goes… A stitch in time, saves nine [possible bearings]!

Dave is the owner of Lee Longs Tackle Shop in Gordonvale (30mins South of Cairns). He not only sells reels; he also does all the servicing in-house. With a Fitter and Turner trade behind him and over 15 years’ experience servicing reels, he’s seen it all when it comes to the good, bad and ugly.

Is your mate a reel basher? Could be in his best interest to read this after you!