ball bearings

Question
What is the difference between a high and low ball bearing. I have no clue what a ball bearing is so can you explain what they do. Please it would mean a lot to understand what they do.

Answer
Ball bearings are used at points in a reel where things spin around.  In cheaper reels, a part may just spin around in a bronze or even plastic bushing (like a collar).  With ball bearings, this "collar" is made from two races with tiny little steel balls between them that roll.  Parts that rotate on ball bearings spin or turn much easier than parts where these two points are just rubbing against each other.

Most reel companies put ball bearings on at least three major rotation points.  That is probably the minimum these days.  But as reels get more expensive, really all of the rotation and pivot points get a ball bearing system.  I think some reels may have as many as 12 ball bearing points in them.

Honestly, at some point it's over-kill.  A reel with  3 to 6 ball bearings will serve most everyone very well.  When I first started fishing seriously back around 1972 my reels had 0 ball bearings in them.  They worked fine.  They just weren't very smooth.  As the bronze bushings wore down, the reels would get very sloppy feeling, the gears wouldn't mesh properly, and they would start to feel like a pencil sharpener.

The ball bearings eliminated this.  Now, they aren't perfect and even ball bearings wear out at some point.  But, it's very rare, and a casual fisherman fishing for normal freshwater fish will probably never wear them out.  Saltwater and really large fish can wear down ball bearings.

But don't think you need a reel with 12 ball bearings.  Three to five are perfect.

Good fishing!