My fault completely, I ruined a (not very expensive) spinning reel that I was really starting to like

You know how much of a tackle tart I am, but if there is one thing I particularly like it’s coming across fishing tackle which doesn’t actually cost that much money but which is seriously good. I reviewed the very much sub-£100 ABU Superior 3000SH spinning reel back in July, and it’s still performing perfectly for me. For sure you can get what I imagine are some very good sub-£100 Shimano and Daiwa spinning reels as well, but I don’t have any experience with them in the last few years so I can’t speculate about any of them. I had been wanting to see the next size up ABU Superior 4000SH spinning reel with that chunky handle for a while now, and more recently I got hold of one to try out……………

And it is everything I hoped it would be. Solid feeling, only a bit larger and heavier than the 3000SH (267g vs 298g), and with such a nice handle. Perfect line-lay out of the box (you know how much I like Penn reels, but it still confounds me why every single Penn reel seems to have a different line-lay out of the box), what feels like a decent drag but I don’t really care much about this for UK bass fishing, and not a single issue with any wind knots via a line-level you can see in these photos. For the same price as I can find the slightly smaller ABU Superior 3000SH spinning reel - £89.99 - I was really starting to like the 4000SH version.

So I was out fishing that session I referred to on Monday, and I wanted to grab a quick photo of the cheb weight based Slender Scoop Shad setup I was using at one point. I shot a quick few versions of the photo you can see above. I know it’s not exactly an award winning photo, but I try my best and for slightly more creative reasons I wanted a bit of water swirling around as you can see in the right side of the frame. What then happened was that a bigger wave rolled in and washed the rod and reel off this rock and into the drink. The reel was completely submerged and washing around with sand and white water until I could get the camera secured around my neck and pluck the rod out of the water.

I carried on fishing and taking a few photos and trying out my mate’s newish APIA rod which is quite frankly disgusting and which if I had any bloody sense I would go nowhere near it! I fished on with the ABU Superior 4000SH spinning reel and then when I got home I did what I always do to a reel which has been properly drowned. I took it off the rod, wound the drag down tight, fully submerged it in a sink of warm freshwater, turned the handle for about thirty seconds, took it out of the water, gave it a shake, wound the drag off, and let it sit to drip-dry. I have saved a number of spinning reels doing this, but it can’t always work and I guess it depends on how much saltwater the reel took onboard and how sensitive the internals are to it. I had to get on the road soon after but when I got back home on Sunday night I was a bit gutted to turn the handle a few times and find out that it had gone grindy and rough.

My fault completely but the reel is basically trashed. I am sure it could be sent off somewhere for a strip down and replacement of various parts, but for how much it costs a company like Pure Fishing to do this versus how much a reel which I can buy for £89.99 actually costs to make? It simply isn’t worth it. The smaller ABU Superior 3000SH spinning reel I have here which continues to perform rather well has never been drowned so I guess it’s a lesson in what not to do to a spinning reel which to be fair makes absolutely no claims that it can withstand a full dunking and wash around in saltwater.

I have saved some far more expensive Shimano and Daiwa reels when they have been properly drowned, but I have also seen some of these far more expensive reels not survive a drowning like my much cheaper ABU Superior 4000SH went through as well. I have never done any damage to a Penn Slammer III or Slammer IV or Penn Authority which has been drowned and/or continuously splashed and dunked via heavy surf fishing, but then you are paying for a spinning reel which is a bit heavier because it’s designed to withstand exactly what happened to my poor ABU Superior 4000SH. Damn, I was really enjoying fishing with it………….

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