Hello Everyone,

 

I've recently had an issue with two reels that have been sitting in my garage for the past 4 months or so. When I went to cast them they felt extremely rough and would deliver a devastating backlash everyone 5 casts or so. As far as baitcasters are concerned, i'm well versed in casting them. I have an extremely educated thumb and normally have no issues with backlashing. Please keep in mind that these reels were blacklashing with a dialed in tension knob and braking system. I normally keep these things low but turned them up accordingly to combat my perplexing problem. Even after dialing in my reels they would still backlash on me during the middle of the cast. Normally when your about to get a backlash you can feel it and apply some pressure with your thumb to give the lure time to pull the line off the spool. In this instance, both my reels were casting fine then blew up mid cast, to fast to do anything about it. What I ended up doing was oiling both reels. After oiling them they started casting like a dream again. I guess my question is can a "dry" baitcaster cause sudden and abrupt backlashes? Or perhaps it was another problem?

 

I would love to hear your thoughts,

 

Cam 

Is sounds like you may need to send your reels out to DVT unless you are well rehearsed in tearing them down yourself.  

 

To answer your question there are a lot of things that can cause that...reels dont always need it but I find less problems if you, at a minimum, tear them down once a year and clean them up.  Metal shavings, dry bearings or bushings, too much grease...there are many things but without tearing it down, it's hard to tell.

Yes. Dry bearing will spin faster. Oiling them slows them down offering better control but shortens your casting distance. Dry SS bearing won't last long. Ceramics are very fast dry which is why many people oil them for better control and noise reduction. 

I know this might be a crazy thought but I had kind of a similar issue. Mine wasn't a backlash but some braid that kind of wrapped weird on the spool. You might try to hook your lure on something and just walk backwards and un-spool the reel. My line got wrapped under itself causing my cast up to that point where it stuck.