Tug On Your Rod?

JERK IT!!

Once you have the biggest item out of the way and you are ready to get yourself on the water, focus must then go to your equipment.  To us, the most important piece of equipment you will have with you in that boat is your rod and reel, or more accurately what you have on that reel.

The condition in which different people store their fishing rods varies greatly.  Some bring them in and treat them like their children, some leave them in the boat when they store the boat in a storage facility, and then some just toss them in the unheated garage and forget about them until the next year.

Rod

The rod is important.  Some guys get new ones every year, some every two years, others still have the very first fishing rod they were ever given.  In any of those cases it is important that you give your rods a once over in the very least.  The thing we especially check is the condition of the eyes.  If there are any notches or if any of the inserts have fallen out causing ‘metal-on-line’ rubbing we will either replace the eyes or replace the entire rod.  Anything that will compromise the condition of the fishing line has to be eliminated.

Reel

We don’t buy super expensive fishing reels.  There are way to many intermediately priced reels out there, that if taken care of, are of very good quality.  We will go through all of them and if any are squeaky we will oil and grease them.  If any of the hardware on the reel is damaged we will replace them.  Notches in the rubber on the bail or absence of the rubber on the bail is the most common malady that we run into and with the amount of casting we do, this is not acceptable.

Line

Herein lies, in our opinion, the most important component of this 3-part set up.  Our waters are infested with Pike.

INFESTED!!

Fireline in 8 or 10 pound is the only way to go.  Sub par fishing line is not an option.  Our ‘motifs operandi’ is to replace the Fireline on our reels every two years.  Year one our reel will be strung to capacity.  After one year of use, the next spring,  we peel off approximatley 1/3 to 1/2 of the line on the reel to make sure we are getting rid of the stuff that was in contact with the water the previous year.

Is this necessary?

Probably not.

But you don’t want this:

To cost you a chance at this:

Good Luck Out There!

Hold On To Your Rod…

And…

CATCH MORE FISH!!