Dear Mr. Conundrum,

I don't have an answer to your question about regular maintenance of modern reels. But ...

First, I feel your frustration. For much of my gear, I've gone to moderate quality/moderate cost that I just replace every few years.

However, sometimes it is good to be old. I still have a number of open-faced, closed-face, and fly reels from the 1960s, made by companies like Shakespeare, Johnson, Southbend, etc. They still work great if I clean and lube them now and then. Most have been on multiple rods that have slowly decayed, but the reels are still in great shape.

I'm taking my 18 y.o. grandson and his girlfriend on an all-day/late-night fishing expedition tomorrow, before they head off in different directions to college two days from now.

I've got good (cheap) ultra-light and light-weight rods/reels for our day fishing trip for LMB, SMB, and BG/RES. But, I've got to make sure my old closed face Johnson's and Shakespeare's are ready for tomorrow night's catfish fishing in my main pond. As I write this, I'm in the process of cleaning and lubing all of them. Then I'll put new high quality 12# or 18# test line on all of them before going and getting a bunch of large creek chubs with my $4 / 16' telescoping crappie jigging rod (fancy bamboo replacement pole, no reel).

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