Risky Jigger

Quite some people have been bitten by the slow-pitch jigging bug and for obvious reasons that it is easy to pick up as well as its effectiveness in regularly catching fish compared to traditional high-pitch jigging. It's a lot less tiring and also gives you more contact feel towards the end of the line.

Here's a brand new Shimano Ocea Jigger a friend recently bought to try out slow-pitch jigging. All new from lines to the new after market handles and knob. This owner also heard some not so pleasant stories of how the gears would jam up and decides to send in for a quick fix and salt water ready preparation.

Ocea Jigger with an after market handle and knob. Salt water bash preparation in the cards.

The first to get treatment would usually be the knobs. No surprises there when I remove the screws to find no thread locker as most shop owners would do nothing more than just a quick installation job. Worse thing is that the handle screw hole is too big for the knob shaft screw. Weirder still is that the handle and knob came as a set, yet they don't fit! I'm not sure if the screws are designed to take this kind of ill fitting load supported using washers. And we're talking about moderate to heavy cranking power and twisting applied to the knob shaft. Screw breakage risks is definitely high on this one but the owner's willing to wing it.

Knob looks normal, but a quick twist on the screw to remove the bearings revealed dangerous installation flaws. No thread locker found (red). Handle and knob wasn't even compatibly with the lose fitting screw through the screw hole supported by washers (green). Standard stainless steel bearings packed with marine grease and thread locker coated screws (blue)

There was also another shock discovery surrounding the knob and handle, more on that towards the end. Next up, drag clicker system removal. This is usually the culprit for a jammed up jigger. I call it 'metal mincer edition'. This jigger should be equipped with an updated drag clicker retainer ring and a quick thickness measurement can confirm this. This, the owner wouldn't want to risk having. So out comes the drag clicker system into cold storage.

Parts which will be removed (red arrow). Previous batches, the drag clicker retainer ring is only 0.26mm thick. New and improved version at 0.3mm thick (green arrow).

Crank case and main plate removed to reveal spool locking mechanism side with little grease protection. A quick brush down with marine grease on all surfaces for water displacement or salt crystals build-up. Care is taken to not mix grease types as the spool support bearing uses a different type of grease.

Some grease here and there straight from the factory (top) and nicely lathered after (bottom)

All surfaces and other bearings apart from free spool support bearings will be marine grease packed for long life protection and smoothness.

No casting needed, just plain ol-reliable salt water jigging. This calls for marine grease packing in most bearings and all internal surface.

Shimano heavy grease coat the gears for smoothness and protection. Drag clicker parts gone too.

Now back to the curious thing found earlier when removing the handles. The lock nut retainer screw wasn't even the right size for the hole. The handle screw hole's machined to use M3 threaded screws but the screw used was from the original jigger which is an M2.5.

Another ill fitted part found. The lock nut screw isn't even screwed onto the handle thread. It was barely slotted in and can be popped out with a few shakes. An M2.5 screw used in an M3 threaded hole. An excuse for some bling job.

The owner wasn't too keen with the purple bling. A few show and tell, back and forth with the owner lead us to something he's agreeable. A quick dremel polishing and buffering reveals a sparkling chrome button head screw. This, the owner agrees won't cramp his jiggy style.

Purple bling wasn't to the owner's fancy. A quick dremel polishing and buffing reveals a sparkling chrome button head. Owner's happy with it.

The only thing of concern here is the knob shaft screws. Not ideal but the owner's willing the take a chance with it. Another 'no metal mincer' jigger edition to be released to the wild for some jiggy action.

Put a ring on it!

Remember this OJ? Yes, this is the minced metal edition Shimano Ocea Jigger. It's functioning flawlessly ever since the offending parts removal but a new ring retainer has arrived and it's time to put it back into the gear box.

OJ non-metal mincer edition about to get restored back to stock internals and a new ring.

The insides are in excellent condition even after several off-shore trips. Protective coating doing its best. The top stack looks bare without the drag clicker system in place.

Custom drag's been thoroughly put through its paces and new custom sized carbontex drags ready to maximize contact patch for a slight bump in drag force and consistency.

Top, clicker wheel in storage with the new ring hot off Shimano's factory. Bottom left, stock ring vs new ring on the right.

I believe Shimano's aware of the clicker ring metal mincing issue and has quietly upgraded the retainer ring as it looks a tad beefier compared to the old ring.

Thickness don't lie. Slight bump in thickness in the hopes that it'll hold the clicker wheel in place better as well as preventing metal mincing action.

Drag stack back to stock configuration.

Engaging the clicker arm from the peep hole.

Ready for some action.

The new ring should be an improvement and hopefully will not turn to its old habits of mincing metal. With a few off shore trips in the works, we'll see if the OJ with a new ring on it can prove its worth.

Ocea Jigger - no metal mincer edition

After we've discovered that the metal mincing edition of a Shimano Ocea Jigger can be fixed, a friend hesitated no more and got himself a new Shimano Ocea Jigger. Straight out of the box before the mincer part was removed, he was complaining about a light ringing sensation when cranking. The Ocea Jigger is a dream to use when paired with a slow pitch jigging rod, especially with Evergreen's Poseidon Slow Pitch Jerker. The thing with the ringing is like buying an expensive luxury car you paid through blood and sweat to discover that on the day you drive it off from the showroom, there's rattling noise coming out from the interior trimmings.

Right after our recent offshore trip, he immediately handed it to me to get it fixed, lube the insides and give it a drag upgrade.

Do not be deceived by its tiny stature. This reel would later haul up a lunker of a grouper after its performance upgrade without breaking a sweat.

This is a PG model with lower gear ratios for more cranking power versus speedier retrieve on the HG.

As expected from a new reel, it's bone dry with plenty of improvement to be found for protection and damage risks reduction.

Metal mincer edition parts in red. Where they used to be in green. Simple.

The first part you see is the metal mincer upon opening the crank case. It's easily accessible and removed without complications. Layer by layer as you peel them off to lube and coat every imaginable surface of the insides.

Sum of all evil parts. Don't think it'll be missed much. Not especially that it rattles like a toy. Body bagged!

Once the offending part's been removed, it's time to lube up the internals for maximum protection as this reel isn't waterproof but water do pass through with drainage ports around the bottom of the case. Therefore it's only logical to coat every surface available with marine grease to displace any possible salt water build up inside especially in the event of total reel submersion into salt water.

Looks bare but fully functional without the metal mincer.

We'll start from the furthest end of the reel where the sole bearing that supports the spool sits snugly in the housing. Retainer pin removed, bearing packed, all surface coated and back into the housing.

Marine grease brush down, bearings packed with marine grease. Note that this isn't use for casting, therefore grease is fine for spool support bearings for maximum protection instead of free spinning ability. Additional grease to fill the void between the bearings and spool shaft+body.

Stock drag that comes with this reel is somewhat too light for the kind of fish we haul up from the deep and we felt that it doesn't have enough stopping power to deny fat lunkers lunging for their homes. Custom and beefier carbontex drag is needed for the job for more stopping power.

A comparison between stock drag vs custom sized carbontex drag discs. Note the big difference in diameter as well as the amount of space available on the drag disc system. Thickness of the drag needs to be matched against the stock drag to avoid misalignment of gear and the entire drag stack.

As usual, layer by layer of rebuild is interspersed with marine grease coating for maximum protection. Thread locked screws need not be reapplied as it is still very new with plenty of hold available.

Here's how a Shimano Ocea Jigger - no metal minder edition looks like with beefier drag system.

Right after the fix, we had another off shore session and that's when this reel managed to stop a lunker and hauled up a fatty grouper. Ringing sensation gone, drag pull was steady and strong. Another happy slow jigger with many more happy endings for this angler.

Fatty lunker denied its home run.

Minced metal Ocea Jigger

My friends and I have been jigging with the Shimano Ocea Jigger for a while and we've got some mixed reaction towards this amazingly compact reel. The massive downsizing of the previous Ocea Jigger to this new Ocea Jigger has its pros and cons. What you gain from ergonomics, you trade-off cranking power as they scale down gear dimensions. In line with the overall theme of downsizing, some parts weren't given the right treatment as we discovered later that there's a bit of a flaw in the design of its (in)famously loud drag clicker. Some people have been wary of this reel as there were also peer reports of premature failures on the first jig drop.

A while back, on an offshore jigging trip, a friend's Ocea Jigger suffered a weird failure while retrieving a fish from the deep. The reel sounded like a nut cracker, cranking was difficult at first, he proceeded to slowly crank on with occasional binding. It felt as if a bearing exploded with metal bits got stuck between the gears. It definitely sounded bad and he feared for the worse of munched up internals. That's how this Ocea Jigger ended up on my operating theater.

As a refresher, I've previously examined this suspicious part and I've decided to disengage the clicker on my Ocea Jigger as it sounded like a cheap rattling toy. This time around, we discovered the real flaw and the potential risk damage this part of the reel can produce.

Looks hot outside, not so on the inside.

When the crank case cover was unscrewed, the horror exposed. Minced metal served on the top drag plate of the main gear! The thin metal piece that was holding the drag clicker plastic gear in place got munched up good.

Powdered metal shavings everywhere inside the crank case. Bottom picture shows how some of the metal bits got caught between the main gear and the crank case cover digging a nasty groove on the crank case cover.

This is how it should be. A flimsy thin metal piece loosely holding a plastic ring with gear teeth that drives the clicker arm attached to the crank case cover. I initially thought this part to be little odd but figured that it shouldn't be off concern as it didn't need to take on any kind of cranking load, just a simple drag clicker push.

To further assess the damage, main and pinion gears were the next to be examined as it is the most critical mechanical part as there was binding experienced when it first happened.

Visual inspection didn't reveal any damages on both gears. These are definitely very strong and durable alloy material used. Further magnified visual checks upon degreasing and contact cleaning didn't reveal a single scratch on the gears. Amazing stuff really.

Powdered metal shavings everywhere meant that the entire gear box needs to be thoroughly cleaned and rebuilt with all bearings checked to ensure no further damages sustained.

Top picture shows how fragile and thin this metal piece is. Definitely a design flaw that will risk binding and making minced metal in the crank case. Metal shavings served all over the drag stack too.

Crank case side full strip down revealed quite a bit of minced metal all over. Luckily, none got into the one-way bearing as it was spinning and stopping as expected without binding. Everything else was either covered or sprinkled with minced metal. In my opinion, I believe that this metal retainer piece is just too flimsy for the job even though it's to hold something rather light with very little load on it when cranked. My theory is that there was an odd angle load transfer from the clicker arm onto the plastic gear forcing it into a 'prying' action thus the metal retainer flexing outward catching the crank case cover.

Stripped down, some scrubbed, some brushed with degreaser and contact cleaner to ensure no degreasing compound's left on any of the surface. This is to ensure proper grease coating during reassembly.

Typically, a reassembly would mean switching between inspection and lubrication. This goes on from the bottom most layer (closest to spool) all the way out the the handle. Inspect, lube, assemble.

Layering marine grease in between inspection and assembly. Top right picture shows the offending and damaged part removed. The choice is yours if you choose to retain the screws in the hopes of replacing the damaged part in the future.

Almost ready to battle once again. Drag clicker gear will be out of the picture in the mean time.

This Shimano Ocea Jigger thought us all an important lesson if we were to prolonged its lifespan and fishing enjoyment. Removing the 'flawed' part would reduce any risk of making minced metal pieces in the crank case. I for one would definitely remove it for peace of mind as I quite like this reel for its size and jigging feel when perfectly matched with either a long fall or slow pitch rod. It provides a lot more feedback from jig action and fish bite detection compared to a spinning reel. You can distinctly tell if the sea floor is muddy, sandy or even rocky as it provides crisp feedback.

With this simple solution of removing the not too crucial offending part, friends who's previously shied away from purchasing a Shimano Ocea Jigger are no longer concern over any premature failure of this amazing reel. Another friend was kind enough to quickly hand me his newly purchased Ocea Jigger to remove the offending part, drag upgrade and marine grease rub down on its internals before heading out for our next off shore jigging trip.

To wrap this post up, here's a video when this Shimano Ocea Jigger failed. See if you can spot the ailing reel in action!

Video courtesy of Tackle Source TV.