Fishing equipment lasts a long time, decades even, given its maintained properly. Even year round anglers have to take a day off some time to make sure their gear is in good shape.
Getting into a habit of regular maintenance early in your angling journey will save you fishing time in the long run and diminish the chances of losing out on a catch. To get you started, we’ve together this check list to follow when it comes to taking care of your fishing gear.
Storage
As tempting as it might be to keep your equipment in a garage or even simply in the trunk of your vehicle, you won’t be happy about it if there’s a temperature drop in your area. Dampness on the gear will cause it to rust.
Save yourself a lot of trouble and store all equipment in a warm place when it’s not in use. When you’re done fishing for the season, wipe down all components to get rid of water or if you have a lot of equipment and want to get it over with fast use a hair dryer.
Cleaning
Use low to medium pressure of warm water to wash your reel and get rid of any dirt or stains. Then wipe it down to get off any remaining dirt that has come loose.
Once done, use a dryer to get rid of any remaining moisture. Store the reel for a day or two so it becomes completely dry and then apply some reel oil. To get even more life out of your reel, you might wish to take it apart and clean and lubricate the components separately. However, this can get quite tricky and you might end up doing more harm than good, so if you’re not comfortable doing it yourself you might want to take it to a gear maintenance shop.
Replacements
Downtime in fishing is a good opportunity to give your gear a once over and see if there are any components that require replacement such as worn lines, bent hooks, or if you’re running low on bait or lures. Do this as part of your maintenance lest you forget before the next fishing season comes around.
Like all other things in life, fishing gear needs maintenance if it’s to last long. Hopefully this post will have covered all you need to know about fishing gear maintenance and the next time you’ve a trophy fish on the line it won’t manage to get away.
Keep your gear maintained, and the next time you’re in the fishing mood, charter a boat with us and we’ll take you to the best fishing spots in Cabo San Lucas.