How to Store Fishing Rods Properly | Maintenance Tips

If you love angling, you must know how important it is to keep your angling gears safe. One of the best angling gears that you want to keep very safe is your fishing rods and reels. Unfortunately, most anglers don’t have the best knowledge on how to store their fishing rods and reels properly.

In this post, I will be giving the best tips on how to store fishing rods. The tips are simple and are some of the easiest to follow. Take a look at what expert tips I have prepared for you in this post.

Storing Your Fishing Rods: The Top Tips

Disassemble The Reels

The first tip is to disassemble the reels. Once you do that, make sure that you grease and oil the reels. Identify any worn-out gears or even springs and replace them. While at it, again clean and oil the handles of the reels and the reel seat.

TIP: It is important to lubricate all these moving parts. The reason is simple. When you store your reels the movable parts won’t freeze up or get corroded.

Check Waders For Leak

For guys that use waders, it is advisable that you check your waders for leaks. Watch out for the pinhole leaks they are the most challenging to find.

An easy way to determine a pinhole leak is to get a dark room and then use a flashlight inside the waders. The light from inside the waders will squeeze through the pinhole. You can then circle the area and use a waterproof adhesive to patch it up.

TIP: When you repair your waders, you will prevent any further tear along with the holed up places too.

Inspect and Repair The Rods

The next thing to do is to check the rod for any worn guides. You should also check it for signs of worn-out winding wraps. In case you find any, you should replace them. Watch out for the guides that have nicks or grooves. The best way to repair the loose wraps is to use an extra wrap of the winding thread then use a varnish to coat it.

TIP: Doing this will prevent any further damages that might occur when your rod sits around in the garage. Storing good gears minimizes further damage.

Store Fishing Rods Vertically

Another very important tip is to store the fishing rods in a vertical position. The reason why this is very much advice is simple. When you store your fishing rods in a vertical position you will prevent any form of bending.

Clean Lines Before Storing

The water that we fish in, when left to sit on your fishing line for long, can also cause some damages; that’s why you need to clean the lines. The water often has chemicals that will react with the line and leave you with weak ends.

TIP: Make sure you clean your fishing line before you store it. Doing this will not only lengthen your line’s lifespan, but it will also give you the best experience. Always use the dish soap when you want to clean your lines.

Store Under Room Temperature

Apart from storing your rods in a standing position, you should also ensure that you keep them under the room temperature. If you do this, it will also prevent the rods from bending at all. When you store your rods in hot places, they will easily weaken the along with the graphite or fiberglass.

Replace Broken Accessories Too

Sometimes the lures can break. In addition to the lures, certain fishing accessories such as hooks can also bend and break. You should ensure that you replace all of them. Replacing thing such as hook hones and hook terminal will allow you to have fully functioning hook that you can pick and head out straight.

Remove Fly Lines From Reel

If you are using the fly lines to fish, you should ensure that they are removed from the reels before you store your lines in loose coils. Make sure the coils are loose, squeezed in coils will stick and damage the lines when you try to separate them. In addition to that, these types of lines are made out of memory which means that storing them in tight coils can easily cause kinks and tangles along with the spring.

Dry, Sharpen, and Oil Blades

To prevent corrosion of the blade and hooks always clean, dry and then coat them with light oil. This is especially ideal when you want to store these fishing gears in the cold and freezing winter time.

Use Rod Sleeves to Store

In case you have disassembled the fishing rods, it is very important that when you store them, you should use the rod sleeves.  This action will help you to keep the tip and the butt sections of the fishing rods from any form of mismatch along the way.

Maintenance Tips For Your Fishing Gears

Apart from learning the right way to store your fishing tools and equipment, you should also learn the maintenance tips. Some of the best maintenance tips that you can have to include the following.

• Sharpen the dull or corroded filet knives. You can do this using the 65 to 120 grit stone.
• You can also examine your braided lines for any wear and tear and replace them in time.
• Make sure you store your lines in loose coils to prevent kinking and getting stuck.
• Replace or even sharpen any rusty and bent hooks that you might have.
• Store your tools in a cool and dry place but far from kids and pets.

Conclusion:

Any angler who wants to learn the best ways on how to store fishing rods should start out with these simple tips. They are easy to learn and also to practice. With time, you will find them falling into place naturally.