How to Clean and Maintain Your Baitcast Reel

Reel maintenance has always been scary for most. Not wanting to take your reels apart and I get that, but there are some simple things that you can do.

Lucas Oil and Lew’s got together and made a complete line of reel care products. Their line consists of multiple reel greases, gear and reel oil, brake oil, cleaner and line conditioner.

Reel Oil

I’m going to talk to you a little bit more about my favorite reel, the Hyper Mag. What I do with this reel is take the Super Duty oil and place a few drops on the worm gear that runs on your level line and then a few drops on the bar that the level line runs on as well. The needle applicator is perfect for putting the drops exactly where you want them. Wind the reel a few times and then you are super smooth.

The next thing you want to do is pull the side plate off and put a drop on the bearing and a drop in the center where the shaft goes in. After that, pull the spool out and just like before, put one drop on the bearing. Lastly, put your side plate back on and you are good to go.

Another thing you will want to do is to unwind the tension knob and take it off. Put one drop on that bearing and it won’t hurt to put a drop or two on the inside of the knob. Put the knob back on you are done with the oil side of things.

Reel Grease

Now onto the gears. Gears do not take oil. Use a screwdriver to unscrew the cover plate on your reel. I do not recommend filling this full of grease. Instead, put a little bit of grease on there and spin it about a quarter of a turn and that’s it. That’s all the grease you will need. Be sure to turn your reel three to five times so that it’ll spread the grease out. Next, put your plate back on and that my friends is a done deal.

Do you also have a spinning outfit? We can walk you through cleaning and maintaining your spinning reel.