What does it mean when a baitcaster is burned out?

Hello!

I’ve recently gotten into Muskie fishing, and I’ve read up on a lot of things saying that if you get too small of a reel for certain baits, you’ll burn the reel out.

What does that mean exactly?

Alex Weismann wrote:

Hello!

I’ve recently gotten into Muskie fishing, and I’ve read up on a lot of things saying that if you get too small of a reel for certain baits, you’ll burn the reel out.

What does that mean exactly?

To me it means putting too much load on the internal components causing them to break or wear out prematurely.
Similar to hauling more of a load on your truck or trailer than it is designed for. It may haul the load a few times but not for long.

To keep the weight and cost down manufactures use nylon and plastic gears. They are fine for Crappie & Bass but won’t hold up for Muskie. I think the biggest issue would be with the Double Cowgirl type baits, spinnerbaits with big double blades.

You don’t need a nice reel to pull in a musky, you need a nice reel to use musky baits.

Burning out reels is easy if you over burden the reel. As mentioned above, you stress out the gears and strip teeth. Can happen on the first cast.

Buy one cry once with musky reels. Few options under $250 that hold up.

Good information above. You wear out the gears or break teeth or bearings. Some reels you can rebuild and upgrade the gears. But at that cost you might as well just buy the better reels.