Why and How to Upgrade Your Baitcast Reel

Many of us want more casting distance or more drag control from our reels. You can get both of these from your existing reel, if you will follow these tips to upgrade your baitcast reel. First, make sure you have a quality baitcast reel. Second, regularly maintain your reels before and after each fishing trip. Finally, have a complete, professional reel maintenance performed on a regular basis. This will give you a baseline to decide whether your reel has mechanical issues or whether it’s performance is maxed out.

So, let’s say that your reel is in great working condition and that all these conditions have been met, and you still want better casting distance and more drag control. This is when you want to upgrade your baitcast reel with superior aftermarket components. Four components to upgrade in a baitcast reel are Bearings, Drag Washers, Braking System and a Full Super Tuning service.

Ceramic Bearings

The biggest question everyone has is whether ceramic reel bearings are worth the trouble and expense. To answer this question, you need to consider a couple of things. The first is how you use your fishing reels. If you rarely wash your reels and don’t care about casting distance or how smooth your casts are, then the answer is no, ceramic bearings won’t be important or worth it to you. If you maintain your reels religiously and want a smoother longer cast then the answer is yes, absolutely, as ceramic bearings make a huge difference in performance and are worth it. The second part to this answer is focused on your reel’s longevity. Is it important for you to have bearings that are extremely durable and that will last upwards of 10 times longer than a traditional stainless bearing? If you’ve answered yes to both these questions then you will want to upgrade your reel with ceramic bearings.

I install ceramic bearings in all my personal casting fishing reels. I install them at the spool level, which means I may install 2-3 bearings per reel. I typically don’t install them in the handles or any internal part not associated with the spool. The reason for this is that I’m only looking for a cast that is super smooth and gives me extra distance. If you’re looking for an even smoother performing reel, then you can upgrade all your bearings to ceramic but that gets expensive and might not be worth the cost.

Bearing components within a fishing reel: Fishing Reel Bearing Basics

Bearing Outer Components

Outer Race
Inner Race
Shied retainer
Shield

Bearing Internal Components

Balls
Cage

Bearing Rating System: ABEC Ratings

Many bearing manufacturers make all types of claims about their high standards and the high quality of their bearings. But how do you really trust these claims? To address these types of claims, bearing manufacturers have set standards for quality control and bearing precision. The three main rating bodies are as follows:

Annular Bearing Engineering Committee or Council (ABEC) is a US organization.
The International Standards Organization (ISO) is an international organization.
National Standards Organization (DIN) is a German organization.

Here in the US, we use the term ABEC for our bearings and all manufacturers importing their bearings must adhere to these standards. The higher the ABEC rating the higher the bearing quality. The ABC Ratings are:

ABEC 1, ABEC 3, ABEC 5, ABEC 7, and ABEC 9.

ABEC 7 bearings are the highest rated bearing for a fishing reel that is affordable. ABEC 9 bearings were originally created for governmental organizations like NASA and the Department of Defense. If someone claims their fishing reel bearings are ABEC 9, they are more than likely misrepresenting them because ABEC 9 are so rare and so expensive that they make no sense in using in a fishing reel. All Fischer Angling ceramic bearings are ABEC 7 ceramic hybrids.

Ceramic vs. Stainless

Ceramic reel bearings come in a couple of types; full ceramic and ceramic hybrids. A full ceramic bearing has completely ceramic outer and inner races, while a ceramic hybrid has stainless outer and inner races. Both full ceramic and ceramic hybrid have ceramic balls. Full ceramic bearings are very expensive and are not commonly found in fishing reel applications, so for the remainder of the article when I say ceramic I mean hybrids. Stainless bearings have all stainless components, including the inner and outer race as well as the balls.

The advantages of ceramic bearings are that they hold up better to corrosion than traditional stainless bearings. Also, ceramic bearings are lighter, however this is such a small difference that it’s hardly worth mentioning. Finally, the main advantage is the ceramic ball itself, which produces much less friction than its stainless counterpart. Less friction allows the ceramic bearing to spin faster which results in the spool spinning faster. That is where you will get the added smoothness and up to a 20% increase in casting distance from your reel.

Carbon Fiber Drag Washers

Fischer Angling installs Carbontex carbon fiber drag washers, the highest rated material for fishing reel drag systems. Tough and almost impervious to heat, Carbontex is a quantum leap over the brittle paper washers fitted to so many factory fishing reels.

So what is Carbontex?

Carbontex is a type of woven carbon fiber sheet. These sheets are generally .3mm to 1mm in thickness and can be cut to almost any size or design. Carbontex fiber sheeting is used in many industries for a variety of applications. Carbontex is strong, stands up to heat and is lightweight.

Carbontex has many advantages such as:

High-temperature resistance
Better friction distribution
Lighter weight
Longer replacement cycle
Increased strength
Water resistance
Abrasion resistance
Chemical stability
Anti-corrosion

Which reels would benefit from carbon fiber drag washers drag washers?

All fishing reels contain some type of internal drag systems. Spinning, casting and offshore trolling reels all use a drag system and can be improved with carbon fiber drag washers. Some reel manufacturers use better materials for their drag washers than others. However most factory drag washers are either paper, felt, or hard plastic. Even some very expensive reels can be fitted with sub-par drag washers.

Why are they used for fishing reels?

When used in a fishing reel drag system, carbon fiber drag washers are much smoother in operation, more reliable, more durable, and hold up much better than any other drag washer material. For those reasons, Fischer Angling Carbontex carbon fiber drag washers are a great upgrade for your fishing reel. Insert Link?

All these factors translate into a huge upgrade over factory drag washers. They will deliver a much smoother drag with added stopping power. Carbon fiber drag washers deliver up to 20% more drag power than factory installed washers. They also help eliminate sticking drags that can cause line breakage.

If purchasing from our website you can add these to your order and we will install them with no installation charge. We can also ship these directly to you to install at your convenience.

The Braking System

Another important area addressed with the super tuning reel service is the centrifugal brake system. The braking system on a baitcast reel will normally consist of 4 to 6 collars that can be adjusted by snapping them in or out. These collars lightly touch the outer spool housing when you are casting by using centrifugal force that slows the spool down. If the outer spool housing has any rough spots or is corroded, the collars will bounce around. This is another area where irregularities will affect the speed of the spool. As these collars hit these rough areas, you’ll see a decrease in speed which then causes a decrease in casting distance or more frequent backlashes. Note: If your reel has a magnetic braking system, super tuning will not improve performance. Magnetic braking systems do not use these brake collars.

Full Super Tuning Service

A professional Super Tuning will take your baitcast fishing reel to another level of performance. Ever since people have been throwing a line into the water, they’ve wanted to find better ways to get line to the fish with more distance, greater accuracy and with less work. Super tuning takes a traditional off-the-shelf baitcast reel and turns it from a good reel into a great reel. It’s like upgrading a car to make it faster.

Our Super Tuning service includes the Bearings, Spool Shaft, Braking System and Drag System. Don’t be fooled into a high-priced reel super tuning service if all four of these aren’t addressed. We’ve touched on both Ceramic Bearings and Drag Washer upgrades. Now we look at more fine tuning of your reel’s Spool Shaft and Braking system.

The Spool Shaft

The spool shaft has three points where friction occurs The first two friction points are the spool shaft ends and the third is a small area that runs through the pinion gear. Our Super Tuning reel service polishes these three points to a smooth, mirror-like finish, removing all corrosion, divots, and scratches that hinder the reel’s performance.

When the spool shaft friction points are polished, you will get much better control and consistency with your casts. If the spool ends are rough or the pinion gear is scratched or dirty, the spool can catch on rough spots thereby spinning inconsistently. When casting, these small irregularities can create speed changes in the spool. These small speed changes then cause slight hitches when you cast, which in turn decreases your distance, consistency, and accuracy. You can tell when you have spool shaft problems when your casts become consistently shorter or you get frequent backlashes. When these happen, you might want to consider having a super tuning service performed on your reel.

The Braking System

As pointed out above, a centrifugal braking system will consist of 4-6 collars that lightly touch the inside of the outer spool housing. With a Super Tuning service we will polish this spool housing to remove any irregularities that can cause these brake collars to skip or slow down. This is a very fine adjustment but when added to all the other components it will make a difference in your casting returns.

Conclusion

When you upgrade your baitcast reel, described above, you’ll experience improved casting distance, better stopping power, and an overall better smoothness to the reel. Please remember though that with improvements like these, you will to take steps towards caring for your reels. This is something you can easily do yourself by following the steps in my How To Maintain and Store Your Fishing Reels Between Fishing Trips blog. Here at Fischer Angling, we perform all these upgrade services for your reel. We’ve vigorously field tested all the upgrade components we sell and guarantee them to be the highest quality on the market. If you have any questions, I’d love to hear from you so please feel free to reach out to me at any time.

Thanks and keep those lines tight!