Feeder Spring~Mad River For many September 26 marks the official end of the fishing season. I typically stop my trout fishing by mid-November and go through my ritual of cleaning all of my equipment, most importantly my rods. I pull my rods out one by one and wipe them down with a warm soapy mixture of water and Dove Soap. Wipe the rod dry and make sure the guides are clean. You can use a little bit of mineral spirits on a Q-Tip to get any additional residue off of the guides. Make sure you clean both the female and male parts of the ferrule. Again you can use a small amount of denatured alcohol or mineral spirits to clean them out using a Q-Tip. Many hang their rods in their given bags up in a cool dry closet, this is a good ritual. I just keep them in their given cases, take the cap off, and place them upright in my rod racks. I typically am very diligent about keeping a journal so I record the amount of use I put on any one particular rod, its kind of like kee...