Freezing reel

[flyfish1159]

I thought of this while reading another post. What is the best type of reel to use in freezing weather? The type of weather that will cause your guides to freeze. In this earlier post someone mentioned that they wouldn't use a cork drag reel, for steelheading, because of the cork absorbing water and then freezing. At first thought it made sense, but the cork is supposed to be conditioned with oil, which should keep the water out right?
I have used composite material drag systems in the cold weather, before I got an Abel Big Game w/cork drag, and the composite locked up. At the time I wasn't sure what was freezing on me. I thought it was just the water that got in the gap between the reel frame and the spool, but maybe it was the drag system. Anyone have any experience or advice? I guess probably the best advice is to keep your reel dry and if it does get wet, keep it moving so it doesn't freeze.

[Fishnfool]

Galvin OB series....I have fished with and have friends who have used others reels that froze up in cold cold weather....The Galvin seems to be consitenlty better than the rest in cold weather (single digits-Icing up guides) kind of weather....Most of us fish Galvins becasue of this and the silky smooth drag system it has. I use a WF5F line with a Galvin OB3 reel.
Hope this helps,


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John G.
Albuquerque, NM

[RickB]

Not from personal experience, but from other posts and articles: the most frequently mentioned feature to look for on cold weather reels is a sealed drag system. If it is sealed so that water can't get in it isn't so important what material is used for the drag.

[Garic]

Orvis Rocky-Mountain, I fish all year and regularly have the guides ice up to the point where the line is trapped solid, but never had a problem with this reel.

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Work is a means for people to afford their fishing.

[Benjo]

I've never seen an Abel freeze up, and I've had mine out in some really cold weather.

[Ray]

I'm with Benjo, I've fished in som nasty winter weather and I've never had an Abel Freeze up.

[josko]

I find Pate Salmon reels are almost impossible to freeze up. I've fished them on days when Lamsons and Sci. Anglers reels would freeze solid as monoliths, yet we just could not get the Pate's to freeze.

[Dpollipo]

Freezing up is not the problem. Just the opposite. When the cork drag gets wet, and it will, it will ice up and the drag will slip. That has happened to me on Bauer, Pate and Abel reels. The reel goes into something close to free spool when a fish starts to run.

It may be that sealed drags avoid this problem. I don't know, becaue I've not used them. Are they really sealed? My Ross BGs have drags that are closed - you can't get into them readily to service the drags - but they sure are not water tight.

[Dpollipo]

The Abel 3N AR changes drag pressure significantly when fishing, but not because of the cork drag.

The spool is very narrow; thus the diameter diminishes rapidly as line is taken by a fish. And the smaller the diameter, the stiffer the drag, because there's less torque exerted by the line. Thus, if that drag is set exactly where you want it with ten feet of line out, it is too stiff when you are into the backing. And if you set the drag to where you want if when you've got 60 feet of line out, it's much too loose when the fish is ten feet away.

This effect is not limited to narrow reels but it is much less noticeable with wide arbor reels because the diameter doesn't shrink as rapidly.

[Dpollipo]

Addendum: Except for icing on the cork, which cause slippage, I don't think that cold weather has any impact on reel performance. I use neatsfoot oil on the cork and a very light coating of Nye's grease elsewhere. I did have a problem in cold weather with white lithium grease and so on the recommendation of a tackle dealer changed to Nye, which retains its fluidity well below 32 degrees F. I bought the Nye lubricant years ago; the label says only "Nye Lubricants Inc., New Bedford, MA 02742 (50 996-6271. I don't know whether they are still in business.