Soaking your reel in water versus spraying down?

[handi2]

Don't do it ever unless its an emergency.

[Porthos]

Don't do it ever unless its an emergency.

Yes! Absolutely in an emergency!

Dunked my Okuma CD65 in the surf at Solmar Beach after being hit by a wave. Knew I would not be home for days and even then at least another week before having time to open the reel up. After returning to the hotel room, immediately did three long freshwater soaks in sink, and allowed the reel to drain. Did the full breakdown and rebuild two weeks later. That reel today is still as smooth as the day it came out of its box.

[jurelometer]

Don't do it ever unless its an emergency.

Good point Keith, but I think this issue is more related to sealed reels

The sealed reel makes for an interesting problem.   If the seals were working,  than no saltwater entered, and no freshwater would enter during a soak.  If the seals were compromised,  then the freshwater that got in during a soak would not be interacting much with the rest of the water outside of the reel, so the soak might not remove much salt.  So Soaking is essentially worthless, or could make things worse if salt was already inside the reel.   The additional moisture from the soak could accelerate the corrosion that is going to be happening.

This highlights the problem with sealed reels.  If any saltwater gets in, they become a corrosion trap.    the salt and moisture gets stuck in a closed environment guaranteed to lead to corrosion.

So I would agree that soaking is not a good idea if it could lead to trapped water that will not be able to evaporate.    But I think the risk of trapped water is limited to  sealed reels.
 

-J

[jurelometer]

Some more thoughts from the lonely ranks of the soakers  :

1.  I am not suggesting that soaking is  an alternative to proper maintenance.  Neither is rinsing.     The question at hand is soak or rinse after use, between maintenance intervals.

2.  It seems that the main argument for not soaking is that folks that do a good job of maintaining their reels are able to prevent corrosion without soaking.    I'm not going to argue with "If it ain't broke, then don't fix it."    So if you have a combination of rinsing and service intervals that works for you, then who am I to argue.   As Daron said , "It's all good."   But...

3.  It is my belief that service intervals have to be much more frequent if you don't soak the reel, especially if any saltwater gets inside. 

4.  If you are using braided line and actually hooked something that took some line,  salt water will get trapped in the gaps of the braid.  If you soak the reel,  no problem.  If you don't soak,  then you need to remove the "contaminated" line (plus some extra),  soak it, and then wind it back on your reel.  You can also get some salt retention with mono,  but I seem to remember that braid is more of a problem.

5.  For the folks that believe freshwater soaking rusted out their bearings:   Aa far as I can tell, the bearings in a saltwater reel are nearly always a combination of 440 (balls and races) and 304 (cages)  stainless steels.    These types of stainless are extremely resistant to freshwater corrosion, but are not very resistant to saltwater.  You put stainless with the same level of freshwater resistance in your dishwasher every day.   If you are not worried when soaking a stainless spoon in a glass of water,  well...  this is the same thing.

So either the bearings are not stainless (unlikely)   or the corrosion was caused by saltwater before the freshwater soak. 

Once corrosion starts, it can be hard to stop, especially if it is traveling under the surface of the metal. or is covered by grease before the saltwater is removed, so there is no oxygen available to heal the oxide layer.   It is possible that corrosion continued after a freshwater soak,   but is less likely that freshwater caused it.

6.  I think there is a bias against soaking for some of the more experienced members who have training in maintaining machinery.   For almost all types of machinery, soaking in freshwater is an uniformed, lazy approach to maintenance.  Sort  like washing your car by driving it into a lake.    So I get the revulsion.   But I am unable to find a scientific reason to back up this anti-soaking sentiment when it comes to saltwater reels.

7.  I could be very well be wrong.   It is just the view of one guy on the internet who fishes in saltwater.  If I am wrong,  I would like to know.  My opinion is based on personal experience,combined with what  I am able to glean from the literature on material science and corrosion.  There are technical arguments why soaking is a good idea earlier in this thread.

I am still looking for some technical reasons why freshwater soaking is bad for saltwater reels.  Can somebody point out what materials in a saltwater reel are damaged by a 30 minute soak in freshwater, or the specific corrosion process that is accelerated by soaking/drying?   

Note:  after Keith's post,  I do think that sealed reels are a special category- and soaking a "sealed" reel in the sealed state may not be a good idea.  Freshwater soaking only works well if the water can freely exchange and evaporate out afterwards.  This works for most saltwater conventional reels, but sealed reels are an exception. 

-J

[boon]

I'm anti-soaking for two reasons:
The first is that my reels just don't get that much water inside them. Externally, sure, but a rinse has that covered anyway. As I mentioned, if I have reason to believe my reels have got seriously inundated with salt water I will strip and service them anyway.
The second is what has been mentioned, that if you get water, any sort of water, in with your oils and greases, with the motion inside a reel it will form an emulsion. Think mayonnaise. Or when a car's head gasket fails and oil gets into the coolant and you get brown milkshake on the bottom of the radiator cap. I would rather just not get much water inside my reels at all, than make sure that a whole lot is in there, regardless of the type of water.

[day0ne]

I hate to tell you guys, but for years I lived in an apartment. When returning from a fishing trip, the first thing I'd do is dump the rods and reels in the swimming pool, then go take care of everything else. Since the rods didn't go all the way under water, I'd pull the whole bundle out, reverse it and swish the rod tips back and forth. I never had any corrosion, anywhere, the grease didn't emulsify,  bearings stayed good, the line stayed good, and after years of this, the reels looked brand new. Now that I live in a house (without a pool), I never feel that a hose or shower gets them as clean, but I haven't had any trouble either. I just get wetter now cleaning the gear.

[kmstorm64]

I put mine in the shower for a few minutes. Very light spray, you don't want to blast them.
Wipe them off and drip dry. Make sure you do the rod too. Salt eats up everything.
I've taken this reel to the beach at least two dozen times with multiple long drops and it still looks like new.
Of course, a complete teardown is done annually. Spool waxed, parts cleaned and fresh grease and oil applied.
I also Use Pledge on the rods.

I second the shower. What do you use for wax on the spool?