Prolonging the Life of Your Fishing Gear: Maintenance Tips
For a lot of anglers, buying new gear is just as exciting as actually fishing. There are always new lures hitting the market, a new rod or reel is going to catch your eye every time you go to the tackle shop, and there are tons of terminal tackle options and helpful gear items you’re going to pick up.
However, keeping all that stuff in good shape is just as important. If you don’t, you’re just throwing money away.
This is especially true if you’re a beginner putting together your first kit and don’t have the funds to keep replacing things.
So, we’ve put together this comprehensive guide to fishing gear maintenance tips that will keep your gear as good as new for years to come.
Rod Maintenance
First, we going to start things off with one-half of the core of your entire fishing kit. Your rod.
Rod maintenance with modern rods isn’t very difficult or time-consuming at all. Most rods are made of fiberglass or graphite, and you don’t have to worry about much.
To start, take a minute after each trip to wipe down your rod. Take off the reel, use a wet cloth and soapy water, and wipe down everything from the rod blank to the handle.
Most rods use EVA foam now. So, it should come right off. Make sure you get into the crevices of the reel seat, too. Then, use a dry rag to dry it off.
If you have cork handles, clean them just like you would foam handles, but consider investing in some cork protectant, and apply it once at the beginning of each year. If you don’t, the cork can start to crumble after a few years of neglect.
After every trip, you need to check your guides. Make sure your line isn’t cutting grooves into your guides, and if you do find grooves, it’s time to replace your guides. If any are loose, you can use a temporary fix like super glue, or you can replace them and properly install new ones.
Everything else comes down to treating your rod right in everyday use and storage. Try not to smack it against things, watch out for your car doors because those claim countless rods every year, and when you store it, keep it straight.
One thing we like to do with rods that’s cheap and easy is invest in pool noodles, split them long ways so they open up, and use them as makeshift rod protectors. You can also buy commercial rod cases and keep your rods stored that way.
Reel Maintenance
Now, it’s time to talk about your reel. There’s a little more to this than there is for rods.
When you’re done fishing and it’s time to store your rod away for a while, remove your reel. This makes it easier to store your rod properly. If you use mono and won’t be fishing for a few months, we recommend taking the mono off, too. It’s cheap to replace, and it will just develop line memory anyway. By taking it off at the end of the season, it will be easier to keep clean, and it will be ready to spool up next year.
Clean the exterior of your reel every fishing trip, and make sure you let it dry out before you put it up. Most modern reels are sealed in all the spots that count. So, you shouldn’t have to worry about water getting into bearings or anything like that. You still don’t want it to sit on the reel and corrode the outside of it.
Once per year, usually, before you start fishing regularly again, it’s a good idea to deep clean the reel. This includes taking off all the basic parts like the spool and handle, cleaning off any dust that accumulated, and rebuilding the reel.
If you notice that the reel feels gritty, you might need to clean the internals. We don’t recommend doing this unless there is an obvious problem with dirt inside the reel, though.
As we said, most reels have their bearings and important internals well protected. So, this shouldn’t be an issue for years. We have some old vintage Daiwa spincasts that still haven’t needed their internals cleaned up and lubricated. In most cases, the reel will fail before that’s necessary.
Beyond that, the key to keeping your reel in good shape is to avoid submerging it, keep it off the ground, and just wipe off the spool, surface parts, and handle. If you get any bad bird’s nests, make sure none of the line has worked its way between components before you clear the nest and start fishing again. Fairly often, that line will get pulled in and wrapped around the spool shank or other parts if you don’t catch it first.
Lure Maintenance
Lure maintenance is extremely simple. However, we need to look at it in two separate categories.
Soft Plastic Lures:
Soft plastics are easy to take care of and cheap, but one problem with rubber-like plastic is that it does dry out after a few years. Most companies put oil in the bag to prevent that. Typically, it’s an organic oil that won’t harm fish or the environment, and there’s just enough to keep the lures moist.
To keep them moist, make sure you fully seal your bag every time you dig in for a new lure and try to squeeze the air out of the bag. If your lures don’t come in a resealable bag, transfer them to a freezer bag when you first open them. You can even keep them in the original packaging and just slip the whole pack in.
If you don’t seal up your lures between uses, they’ll dry out fairly quickly.
If your lures do get a bit dry, you can add an oil-based fish attractant to the bag, but honestly, you tend to use them all up before that happens if you seal them up properly. They can last for years without any problems.
Beyond that, there’s not much you can do. They’re susceptible to getting ripped in half any time you get an aggressive bite.
However, you can stretch your dollar a little further if you keep all your torn-up soft plastics and collect them for a while.
There are lure molds online that you can buy, and when you have plenty of ripped-up soft plastics, you can melt them down, put the goo in the mold, and let it harden again. With very little effort, you have brand-new lures.
This isn’t necessary and they’re cheap to replace, but it can be helpful if you’re tight on cash, and it’s always fun to experiment with custom lures.
Rigid Lures:
We’re classifying almost everything that isn’t a soft plastic as a rigid lure. That includes crankbaits, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, Rattle Traps, and everything in between.
These are usually a lot easier to take care of.
While you’re fishing with them, do your best not to hit obstacles that can crack them or chip their paint. You should also immediately pull off any moss or similar gunk that gets caught up on your lures. If you let that dry up, it’ll be a lot harder to clean, and it can lead to corrosion since it retains moisture and covers up metal components.
After each trip, or when you put a lure back in your box, take a second to dry it off. This will help keep rust from developing on the hooks and eyelets.
Another good idea is to invest in a fishing tool that comes with a hook sharpener.
Many pocket knife sharpeners have them included, as well. Every few fish, give your hooks a few swipes on the sharpener to make sure they keep penetrating as intended.
Finally, we recommend keeping proper replacement hooks on hand. Hooks get bent, snapped, and rusted all the time. Instead of replacing the whole lure, you can replace the hooks and keep on fishing. Many rigid lures will last a lifetime if you take care of them and don’t get them snagged somewhere you can retrieve them from.
Maintaining Hooks
Hooks aren’t difficult to maintain, but it is important to maintain them properly.
For the most part, there are three things you should do.
First, keep them sharp. Like we said earlier, you need a hook sharpener or a knife sharpener with one built in, and every few fish you catch on a hook, sharpen it up a bit. If you don’t, you won’t get as much penetration, and you’ll find that bass spit your hook more often.
Then, keep them dry. They’re almost always coated or made of a highly resistant metal, but you still need to keep your hooks dry. If they develop any rust at all, the likelihood of the hook snapping mid-fight is a lot higher.
Finally, we recommend dedicating a different part of your tackle box to each specific type of hook you have and putting them away in a manner that keeps them from getting tangled up.
This will help you find the hook you need a lot easier, and it will keep your hooks from pulling on each other and dulling themselves as you move your tackle box around or dig through your hooks.
Weight Maintenance
Maintaining your weights is probably the easiest maintenance task you can do.
For starters, don’t cast them on land to practice, and try not to hit obstacles on the lake when you cast. Weights are made of lead, and lead is fairly soft. If you keep casting it into a rock or cast it down the road practicing your baitcaster skills, a perfectly good weight will eventually be damaged to the point of uselessness.
Beyond that, just keep them dry when you’re not using them. As they age, you’ll notice they turn a little white, but that’s just oxidization.
With the right equipment, you can melt your old, beat, weights down, and remold them into whatever type of weights you have molds for.
However, that is a lot of work, and it’s only worthwhile if you want to make something unique or stretch your dollar the furthest. Weights are some of the cheapest tackle you can buy, and it’s easier to just chuck the old ones and replace them.
Line Maintenance
Line maintenance mostly comes down to knowing when to replace it.
Mono needs to be replaced every year, because it gets weaker with sun exposure, stretches with use, and develops line memory.
Braided line can typically last a few years if you keep an eye on it. If you see frays, cut the line just behind the fray. However, after a while, you’ll either not have enough left on your spool, or frays will start to develop all over the line. Replace it when it looks torn up.
Fluorocarbon is an odd one. It’s so thin and hard to see that it’s easy to miss kinks that will snap it just by casting. We mostly recommend using this solely for leaders, because if you spool up a whole reel with it, you’ll likely be replacing it quickly.
Other than that, your supply of extra line should be stored on the manufacturer’s spool, kept in a cool, dark place while in long-term storage, and you should check it each year to make sure the plastic hasn’t degraded or pests haven’t gotten to it.
Maintaining Scents, Lights, Knives, and Pliers
To wrap this up, here are some tips to take care of the little odds and ends you probably rely on.
Scent bottles and scent removers should be stored in separate small freezer bags if you keep them in your tackle box. We don’t know how many times ours have busted open and leaked, and you don’t want that all over your tackle.
If you use lights or lighted bobbers, check them each annual quarter to make sure the batteries are still good. You don’t want to find out they’re dead on the lake in the middle of the night.
Finally, your knife and fishing pliers just need to be kept dry and dirt-free. If they get wet, don’t forget to dry them off and apply a little food-grade oil to keep them protected.
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