Fishing Michigan

Bet you thought this had something to do with St. Paddy’s…hic.

Actually if Crown Royal were an Irish whiskey, then yes it would, but it isn’t, so it doesn’t.  Sooooooooo, what does CR have to do with fishing?  Not much, but the nice little purple bag that comes with it does.  Remember the bag full of reels in the last blog?  After taking the reels apart and greasing them, its time to put them (most of them) to sleep for the warmer months.  Call it reverse hibernation if you will.  Now you can go out and get yourself all the little expensive reel bags for 7 or 9 bucks a pop,  but if I bagged up all the reels that I have, that’s just another expense I do not need to deal with.  Call it cheap if you will, but my mother called it frugal.  And those who lived through the depression and the rationing of WW II,  well they knew what they were talking about.

Don’t drink the hard stuff yourself, usually not a problem.  Somebody does, ask around.  If you strike out there, go to your local pub or tavern.  The bags tend to pile up, and for some reason, they just do not get thrown away.  Ask around, you might get lucky and score a stash of these little gems.

I had all the heavy stuff put away yesterday morning/afternoon.  In the evening I did the light tedious stuff, taking the reels off the ice rods

Not exactly a quick task in my case, but there are things that need to be checked when putting away the gear.  On my cork handled rods, not sure if I told this trick already or not, but its worth doing again.  Specially with the price of things already going up.  It is definitely worth the time to put a few light wraps of masking tape on the handles where you put the reels.  This will save years off  your cork handles,  because little pieces can be pulled off when removing the electrical tape at the end of the season.  Also, a good idea to check your rods for any wear and tear that might have occurred for one reason or another through the season; check the guides, handles and the blanks themselves for nicks, cracks…etc.

When pulling off the reels,  also check for nicks, specially around the roller guide.  This can happen for a number of reason,  most commonly from using a swivel.  Although great for preventing line twist while fishing, they can do serious damage to the equipment if not used carefully.  After all the reels have been removed I check the bearings in the reels, these are located in the handle assembly and be inspected simply by removing the handle and looking through the opening.  Just like greasing the bearings on the trailers before trips,  neglect can cause equipment failure down the road.  These for the most part are my ultralight reels, Abu’s and Daiwa’s.  I do use them briefly during the spring and a few trips to the Upper, so I want to make sure they are greased up.  Not all the reels will be used so, the reels that look like they have a fair amount of grease in them are good to go for the next trip.  You do not want to over do it, because too much grease next winter can make the reel sluggish, or hard to crank over.  The six or so reels that I will use on open water, will be greased once.  By winter time, they should have the proper amount in them for next season on the ice.

Proper care is important.  It really doesn’t look like much in that little Plano bag, but the replacement costs on poorly treated equipment can be high.  Roughly in my head, that’s just a hair under $900 in their.  With proper care, that is one expense I should not need to attend to for many years.