Tips & Techniques
Fishing Tackle Tips for the Apocalypse
by Chris Scheblie
Marsh & Bayou Staff
(504) 309-3446
[email protected]
In light of the recent epic flooding events, I’m revisiting a subject
which many of us still have in our recent memories after Hurricane Katrina, dealing with flooded fishing
tackle. Unfortunately, I had the displeasure of dealing with this once
again this past month, and I learned a
very interesting trick that I hadn’t
thought of until this happened.
I regularly store a lot of my
tackle, lures, baits, etc. in 3700 series
boxes because they fit most tackle
storage systems, whether soft or hard
sided. I started using Plano’s 3700
Series Hydro-Flo Storage Boxes because they are completely covered in
hundreds of these small ventilation
holes. I found that by using other
gasketed, watertight storage boxes, a
lot of my lures were getting rusty or
funky because they were not getting
properly dried out after a fishing trip.
By using the Hydro-Flo series
boxes, they completely dry out on
their own from all the ventilation
holes. The real advantage with the
Hydro-Flo Storage Boxes was revealed after a lot of my tackle was
flooded recently, and when I finally
was able to attend to it, the lures in
the Hydro-Flo series tackle boxes had
completely drained of all flood water;
and in fact, a lot had dried out already. I simply flushed the lures with
fresh water right in the Hydro-Flo
boxes and then set the
boxes in front of
blower fans
overnight to return
the next morning to
perfectly dry, non-corroded tackle.
Dealing with flooded
fishing reels is kind of like
dealing with a flooded
lawn mower, the quicker
you get the water out of
the reel, the better chance
you have of salvaging the
reel. A good quality bait
and tackle store like Gus’
Bait and Tackle in Slidell
can help with this by simply
bringing them your reels
for a full servicing, and they
will have them running like
new. If, however, you are
short on time while dealing
with other things like gutting your house, for example, there are some steps
you can take to preserve
your reels until they can
have a full servicing. Baitcasting reels are probably
the most finicky, so I’ll use
them as the example. Disassemble both sides of the
reel by removing the plate
on the brake side of the
spool, as well as taking the
handle and star drag off to
remove the cover plate on
the gear-drive side of the
reel. Once you have the
cover plates off, you can spray out
the bearings and gears with a product which displaces water
like Blakemore
Real
Magic.
Let the reel sit
for a few minutes to
evaporate the cleaner then
spray all the internals, including the
bearings, with a real good synthetic
thin-film lubricant like Royal Purple’s
Maxfilm.
Maxfilm is a synthetic penetrating lubricant that is able to penetrate
the smallest tolerances and helps to
prevent rust in all parts of the reel.
After a good soaking with the Maxfilm, wipe off any extra and apply
some fishing reel grease to the drive
gears and level wind gear.
Reassembl