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3. Reel Care

This fall I happened to pull the spool from my Hardy and it looks pretty bad in there...Any suggestions or personal tips you may have for cleaning and re-lubing a reel would be appreciated...I have also discovered that my waders leak but I've been there before...

I don't want to date myself or my fishing partner but when I asked him he started off with one of "Tap's Tips"...Anyone remember H.G.Tapply out there and not afraid of revealing your age? Well ole' Tap says start with gasoline and though I know this will work, in the old days we cleaned everything with gasoline, I'm thinking that this is a little dated, as is my buddy's offer of Pflueger Lube...Don't any of us old timers ever throw anything out?! I still have those replacement soles and glue kit for the Gary Borger Ultimate Wading shoe...:)

Thanks!

Spence

Spence, how about an old toothbrush and some gun lube?

Yeah, I had an uncle once who said the best way to clean a rifle was with gasoline. He died at the age of 50, so somehow I don't think that was a good idea...especially since when he was doing it, it still contained LEAD...

Regarding H.G. Tapply, there was an article not too long ago in one of the flyfishing magazines - might have been American Angler - about Tapp's Bug, a very simple bass bug tied out of deer hair (in a cone shape tapering backwards) with a bucktail tail. Next year (or maybe this winter??) when I feel motivated to spin some deer hair I might have to whip up a few for my favorite bass waters.

Jonathon

Spence,

I typically take my reels apart in the winter and scrub them with some dish washing detergent and oil spots that need it with a good gun oil. When things are really bad, I go the way of the vinegar bath on the link I'm providing with good results.

http://clarksclassicflyrodforum.yuku.com/topic/4196

I don't think you'll find any better info than this link.

B.J.

BJ,

What a great reference mister! That should just about do it...If I can find some "Bowling Alley Wax"??? :)

Thanks!

Spence

Glad I can help.

This might be a little tedious but after every fishing trip i like to clean my real out along with my other gear. This prevents any sediment from setting on the insides of the real. And i do it with just a piece of cloth, no water or anything with it. Now if you wait a while before cleaning it, or if you just decide to do it every other trip, then you might want to use some water. And as far as getting the really old, rusty, other shit that might have built up in the real...i had that same problem with an old orvis reel i found out in the water that looked like it had been sitting there for a while. I used a type of gun cleaner liquid with a toothbrush. It came in a gun kit i have and id tell you what its called but don't have it with me at the moment. That always works though.

You get sediment in your reels after a normal day of fishing?

What did I say, Jesse - an old toothbrush and some gun lube.

Works real well on guns too!

Jonathon

You said it right Jon and yeah sometimes i get sediment after a days rest of fishing. Im always setting my reel on the ground or in the water, the murky water, sand, etc. It could build up quick and doesn't take much. You treat your gear well and it will do the same for you!

Warm soapy water when they need it, always at least one if not two yearly complete tear down cleanings. Gun lube, or reel lube, high temp bearing grease, Vaseline, valve instrument oil.... I've used all kinds of lubricants.

This might be a little off topic, but my buddy and I laughed out loud when I read in the care pamphlet for my Lamson Guru that a thin coating of "high temp. grease" may be applied to the reel seat. High temp grease?? How fast do they think this thing is really going to be turning??? How hot does it really get in there??

WD WORKS FINE.

Keystoner, the "high temperature grease" goes with the "aircraft grade aluminum". Just in case you happen to be flyfishing from the cockpit of your F-15...now let's see 'em come up with a flyline you can cast into a Mach 2 wind!

Jonathon

B.J....Our boy Jess fishes hard, man! He's probably crawling on his hands-and-knees like in boot-camp as he sneaks under someone's fence and their "no trespassing" sign...That crawling around can be hard on a reel...:) Those Hogs he shows us don't hang in easy-to-get-to-public-water...

Spence

PS Thanks boys! I picked up some Reel Lube at the local fly shop up north...It's packaged by Hardy and the reel's an old Hardy and I probably paid way too much for it and it's composition is probably the same as 3-in-1 oil...Matt's probably laughing at me as he reads this.

Spence, I'm certain that your Reel Lube packaged by Hardy is specifically engineered to perform best on Hardy reels. Doncha think??

;oD

Jonathon

Oldredbarn..Wish I had bought all Hardy's to start with, and never looked back. I am a click drag guy, and luv to listen to my Hardy's. Left two of them on Sage rods along the river bank for someone else. I use hot water to cut the grease and remove the grit. Then dry and some WD-40, and light grease. Years ago, I sold Hardy's and we had a sale, and I bought the 3 reel set of Hardy Perfects for my dentist friend for $35 a piece!...and I didn't get any!

Ouch! We both know what they say about hindsight, eh!?

May years ago I lost a Hardy Flyweight...An old friend showed up out of the blue and we went fishing. My reel had a double tapered 3wt line on it...We had fished a stretch of river we had fished together when I had first started to fish the Au Sable. We had spotted the cars and when my friend drove me back to my car he said if we hurried up and raced in to town we could grab a pizza and maybe get back to the room in time to catch the third period of the hockey game.

There were a couple guys actually at the parking area rigging up to head out fishing when I pulled away...I thought I heard a weird sound and didn't think too much of it until the next morning when I opened the back of the truck to see what condition I'd left my leader in and the Hardy case was sitting in there open and no reel! I retraced my tracks but no luck...I think I forgot it up on the roof of the car and it feel off and someone else found it...

I replaced the reel but the newer one just doesn't quite seem the same...This was far enough back that they were still making them in England but somehow it feels like it was made of different stock or something...It may be just me but who knows...After you have fished with a reel a couple decades or so you get to know its feel and somehow the newer one feels different. Maybe it's like an old girlfriend or something...The one you let get away.

I also have a LRH Lightweight that was my first Hardy and it was a limited edition where it was "bronzed"...Instead of the traditional gray & silver it is brown with gold lettering...I love that reel and I don't really know how to explain why though that click "drag" (if you can call it a drag) sounds wonderful.

I have an Abel .5 with replacement spools and an old Marryat 8.5 and I would say that I use the Hardy 95% of the time...I would admit that the Abel was perfection except that it is silent when a good fish is running and how and the hell can you show off to the guys up- or down-stream from you when it makes no noise?!

A quick story re: The Sweet Sound of a Hardy...My fishing buddy, mentioned above, is an old curmudgeon, you either love the man or you don't...There is no in between. He would hear my Hardy squalking and he would yell at me, "Damn it Spence! Quit showing off! Reel that damn fish in before you kill it!" He was my mentor and I usually followed him downstream until he got tired of hearing me shouting out his name after my Hardy had been screaming and he would turn around and I'd hold up a nice fish and with a big smile on my face I'd yell, "You forgot one, man!" He actually quit turning around...I'd just see his back heading downstream and a slight back-and-forth motion of his head and I imagined I was getting cursed out under his breath.

We have a long time mutual friend that has guided on the Au Sable for decades and he and I float together one day during my week up in May for may years now. One of our favorite pass-times is maying fun of our old friend...There is this nice bend in the river that turns in to a nice hip deep run and when it is on you think spring creek out west. I was telling my guide friend a nice story about another time I had hiked up to this spot and had a field day there.

My friend had stopped the Au Sable river boat because another boat had stopped just down a ways from us and he wanted to wait until they had pulled away. We were at the top of the bend. I saw a rise and cast to it and hooked a hefty fish...The Hardy started to really squalk and as I was playing the fish I was telling him how our mutual friend would yell at me for over-playing a fish because of the noise the reel made...

My friend in the back of the boat was looking downstream and by now the guide in that other boat and his two clients were looking upstream watching me play this fish. I could hear my buddy in the back of the boat whispering to me, "Spence...Take your time there...Let him make another run..." ;)

The next morning when I was hanging with the guides near where their boats are stored the young guide that was in that other boat wanted to know how big my fish was..."Oh...He was ok." ;) Probably, when I wasn't around, that fish grew and my guide friend probaby explained how he had put me over that fish. :)

Love that Hardy sound!

Spence

at end-of-season I clean my reels and spools with a well-used (soft) toothbrush and rubbing alcohol since it's supposed to be a fairly good universal solvent. I relube with an old tube of reel lube with an Abu Garcia label on it (a leftover from my baitcasting career) which is fairly thick bodied so it coats well and doesn't run.

I'll also strip the line and backing off to check knots, treat it with Glide, and then leave things to dry for a day or so- again, just to make sure.

if one of my reels happens to take an unplanned dip in a dirty river I'll also do a clean/relube on it, just to make sure things don't go whack at an inopportune time.

sidebar: I've tied a couple dozen Tap's Bugs,can only say good about this pattern. Simple, fast, easily tied, used fluorescent bucktail in various outrageous colors for the tail, it beats pretty much any hair-popper I've ever tied (lots of them), in every category.

I Peter 5:7...'Cast your cares upon Him'.