What's the concensus on flushing a new Shimano Stradic 8000 after a night of fishing? I used it tonight for the first time while plugging in the surf at singing beach and unfortunately it got dunked. Normally I would just hit it with a fine mist from the hose, but one, it got dunked and two, the Stradic's drag is not water proof. Should I imerse it in fresh water to get rid of any salt water that might be trapped internally?

I knew from the forcast that the surf would be up, but at times it was quite a bit bigger than I expected. One time while I was about calf deep in water and l looked up to see a wave about to break that was a foot taller than I am at about 6 feet. The wave was a ways out from where I was standing, but from then on I gave the surf the respect it deserved and went in no farther than mid calf.

im sure it wont hurt it. freshwater evaporates fine, salt water leaves salt. ide rinse it.

the stradic has a ceramic drag so water cannot be absorbed in to the drag washers i would let it soak in warm water open up the side of the reel for soaking. let dry with reel side off over night alittle oil and grease in the morning if you want to

I'd take the spool off and soak the spool and reel body in warm soapy water. swish it around alot under water and maybe even work the handle of the reel under water- when its dry hit the whole shibang with Boeshield T-9 or wd40... but thats just me :D

Got home from work, 1 hour broke down 2 stratics and an abu, I'd break it down.

I attempted to take the side cover off by removing the two side screws and gently seperating the cover from the body, but it didn't want to detach. I didn't want to scratch the finish by attempting to use the blade of a screw driver to get the cover off. Should the side plate come off by removal of these two screws?

Got Stripers, when you break your stradics down do you remove the gold end cap? That would mean removing the anti-reverse lever as well. zi don't want to screw the pooch here.

The side plate on most "long cast spool" reels like the Stradic won't come off unless you loosen and partly remove the reel's rotor. There are probably additional screws in the portion of the plate that's underneath the rotor.

I beat the bag out of mine. A LOT of dunking. Very, Very rarely even rinse it off. Hasn't been any problem over the past 2 Years. Just pull the drag washers out and wipe them down. If it is getting dunked a lot, every once in a while dump a tube of Penn reel lube into the lube hole.
At the end of the season, bring it a reel fixer and have them clean it, lube it.