Should I Wash Off My Fishing Reels After a Trip?

This questions always stirs up a lot of strong opinions. I have done it and I will NOT do it again. Here's why: ​

A few years ago, I went on a bay trip with a group of guys. Once we got back to the dock, everyone pitched in to clean up and unload the boat. While I was emptying a few of the compartments, someone started spraying down all the rods lined up against the wall—pretty standard practice for most boat fishermen. The problem was that I had two surf rods mixed in because I was heading straight to the beach afterward. Before I realized what was happening, my buddy had already blasted my rods and reels with fresh water. I didn’t think much of it at the time; everyone else seemed to do it, and their gear always looked fine. When the bay trip wrapped up, I headed straight to the surf to chase a few sharks. Everything worked just fine, and I caught plenty of fish that weekend.

I try to go fishing every other weekend throughout the year, so a few weeks after that bay trip I was back on the surf. I set up my campsite, unpacked all my gear, and got to fishing. After a while, I went to reel in one of my rods to check the bait and immediately felt something was off—the reel was stiff and grinding, like the gears were full of sand. That had never happened to me before. I checked the other rod and found the exact same issue. That’s when it clicked: these were the two reels that had been sprayed down with fresh water on the boat. Both were completely unusable, and I had to put them away for the rest of the trip.

Full Moon on the Beach

All of my other reels worked perfectly, and I used them for the rest of the weekend without a single issue. Some of those reels had been in service for over ten years, and I had never washed them down—not once—and they’d never given me any trouble. But the two that were washed down? They were useless only three weeks later.

Why? Because the fresh water mixed with the grease inside the reels and flushed the lubricant out of the critical areas. I’ve told this story a few times, and some fishermen get defensive, insisting that I’m supposed to tear down and service my reels regularly. And I agree with them—I do full tear-downs and complete services on all my reels once a year, right before Sharkathon. What I don’t see is the point of washing them down and servicing them after every single use. I don’t have the time for that, and honestly, why would I when the reels I’ve never washed still work flawlessly?

In conclusion, when that annual bay trip rolled around the next year, the guys I fished with pulled out their rods and discovered that every single reel they washed down was locked up tighter than a bank vault. Their solution? They marched straight to the tackle shop and bought brand‑new reels like it was some kind of yearly subscription service. When the trip wrapped up and it was time to clean the boat again, I quietly put my rods away while the guys happily sprayed theirs down all over again. At that point, I figured it was best to let nature take its course.