Had a weird issue today. Lews Tournament Pro, just under a month old. I already returned it, so no emergency, but, I'm curious.
Been fishing it for a few weeks now and it's been great. Today, however, first cast and it only goes like 15'. Cast a little harder and it goes like 17' and hard left. About ten casts in, I actually caught a ~1.5 lber. Throwing a 3/8 oz lipless crankbait. So I struggle around the first pond. I have three rods with me and so I simply spend more time on my other rods/baits. Just up the hill is a second, bigger pond.
I get to the bigger pond and this distance limitation is driving me nuts. I open up the side plate and investigate the breaks and disc for too much oil, water, grass, whatever might be hosing up the breaks. The side plate has only been off once before and that was weeks ago and it's worked plenty of times normally since then. Nothing looks funny. I turn down the spool tension knob. No more distance, no backlash. I keep tweaking it down but it never changes the outcome. I tweak the breaks down and down and down until they are on the lowest setting. Still getting 15-20' casts. I turn down the star drag and get another 7-10'. That's weird.
Work my way around the first half of the pond. Actually catch two ~2.5 lbers, one of which INHALED the LCR and put up a great fight. The back of the pond is a spillway from a third pond, so I pack up and head back to where I started to start working down the opposite bank. First cast, bird's nest. WTH? Oh, I turned the breaks all down/off. Maybe it's working now. Turn the breaks back where they should be. Bird's nest. Pick it out and turn the breaks to max. Bird's nest. So the breaks have gone from locked to non-existent.
Open up the side plate. Pull out the spool. Looking for something that MUST look obviously wrong, but it all looks normal. Put it back together. 15' cast. Turn the breaks down and down and down. Breaks are locked again. Won't throw more than 15'.
Cut off my LCR and tied it on another rod. ~15 cast later, landed a 4.4 lb.
The reel was recently discontinued by Academy, so I got a great deal on it. However, that also means I couldn't just exchange it. I chose to pay the extra and pick up a Curado 200k HG.
I suspect this might be something relatively easily repaired, but I'm not paying to repair a 25 day old reel. Any thoughts on what it might have been?
