My New Shimano Spinning Reels are NOT SMOOTH…

I am on my second day of fishing with my new Shimano Symetre and Shiman Sahara spinning reels. I must say that turning the cranks on both of those is a workout. Granted, it is below freezing out and reels tend to get sluggish, but this I did not expect. Don’t get me wrong, there is no binding or out of balance sensation…just handle turns smoothly with EFFORT. AS much as I fish, I wanted effortless cranking, powerful and smooth for all the fishing that I do. Do these ’05 reels need breaking in ? These reels came highly recommended on fishing forums…

I believe your problem is the reels are new out of the box. They are full of self life grease. You need to take them apart and clean them out good. Use a very light oil and little of it when you put them back together. You have some nice reels. They just require some attention this time of year. Come summer you might want to take them apart again and add reel grease.

Bret is right. I recommend Quantum Hot Sauce (available at Fleet Farm, Gander, etc.). I do use the Frabil Sub-Zero on my ice reels, but I haven’t had to do that with my regular spinning reels despite some serious cold-weather fishing.

John

ksdog – i agree the previous posts…i fish the symetre and also have a sahara and i haven’t found a better real out there that lasts as long and is as quality for the dollar. you can upgrade to the stradic and stella but anyone paying that kind of money for reels either has too much of it, or thinks that if they spend more money they’ll catch more fish(guides at resorts love these folks but they take up space on the water you know.) give the symetre some time, try the re-greasing, and i hope you like it as much as i do. by the way, i found a couple on sale at cabela’s for 49.99…that is a steal for a symetre.

I just bought a Shimano Sidestab and used it in 22 degree weather this morning. It performed very smooth for me while some of my other reels were pretty sluggish. To bad I didn’t get to see how they perform with a 10# eye Overall, I am impressed with the low priced Shimano reel. I may even get a few more in the near future

yes they seem to fill they way full of grease. grease is for gears oil is for bearings. i also like the hotsauce. its good stuff

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I just bought a Shimano Sidestab and used it in 22 degree weather this morning. It performed very smooth for me while some of my other reels were pretty sluggish. To bad I didn’t get to see how they perform with a 10# eye Overall, I am impressed with the low priced Shimano reel. I may even get a few more in the near future

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I don’t know if you went with the Sidestab because of the casting trigger but if you’re going to do jigging, move on up to the Sedona model before buying anymore ‘stabs.

I used to use a lot of ‘stabs……… and yes……… they are nice! But the Sedona’s were consistantly smoother and the instant anti-reverse has been awesome! After fighting a few big fish, I started getting a slight grind in my Sidestabs……… consistantly.

These were 2000 and older models though……… they may have redesigned the newer ones. Anyway……. something to think about before buying more……..

The sidestabs no longer have a casting trigger and now have the superstopper II anti reverse. sidestab