Rods & Reels

A spinning reel is the reel most anglers learn on, and for most freshwater fishing it’s still the better tool even after you know how to run something fancier. It…

There’s no such thing as the single best fishing rod, no matter what a product listing title claims. A rod that’s perfect for finesse fishing clear water for smallmouth bass…

Line twist usually gets blamed on the reel, the line brand, or bad luck, when the real cause is almost always how the line went on in the first place.…

Bad storage breaks more rods than bad fishing ever does. A blank that survives years of hard casting and hooksets can end up with a permanent bend from nothing more…

Cleaning is the maintenance step most anglers skip, mostly because a reel can look completely clean on the outside while grime and salt build up in places you never see…

Grease is not one product doing one job inside a reel, and treating it that way is how a lot of home maintenance ends up making a reel worse instead…

Backlash is the reason a lot of anglers try a baitcaster once, fight a bird’s nest for ten minutes, and go straight back to a spinning reel for good. It…

A cracked guide or a broken tip doesn’t have to mean the end of a rod you like fishing. Most of the repairs below cost a few dollars in parts…

Most of what sends a reel to the shop is something you can fix at your own kitchen table in twenty minutes. I’ve kept reels running eight, ten years past…

A reel that gets rinsed after every trip and stripped down for a real cleaning once or twice a year will outlast one that only gets attention when it starts…