I had the same problem with an Abu Garcia spinner. Took the whole thing to pieces, cleaned everything (from the gears to the smallest screw) down with terps then re-oiled and greased and put back together. Ran sweet as again and felt like new until I hooked a decent fish and the whole thing ceased up mid fight.

take the covers off and add grease to gears and shaft .more than likely grease gone hard

In addition to the above take lots of photos when you are pulling them apart . A picture can make getting fiddly bits back together a lot easier .

Are they spin reels?

If so the most common cause of "stickeyness" that kayakers seem to get with the typical soft bait spin reel design is corosion of the antireverse or the bearing/bearings just above of below the anti reverse which sit on the main shaft, under the rotor.It's the one place that generally isn't sealed on spinning reels and water can easily get up threw the gap between the rotor and main body of the reel. Even where there is a rubber cap put over those bearings it often isn't effective.

the good news is that those parts aren't that expensive, so if you've got the mechanical know-how it's pretty cheep to fix, if not then take it to a tackle shop rather than 'have a go' yourself and take it a bag of bits. a bag of bits is much harder to repair and takes some time to figure out even with a schematic diagram and therefore caries a higher labor cost.

Yeahnah wrote: In addition to the above take lots of photos when you are pulling them apart . A picture can make getting fiddly bits back together a lot easier .

Kenshin wrote: looks like you got some internal gear problem(corrosion or dried up grease)... might just be needing a bit of cleaning/servicing. Do you wash it on fresh water after every trip? Had it ben submerged in saltwater? I suggest taking it to you nearest tackle shop that service reels.

commissioning work are we Ariel  

yeah mate they are both spinning reels and I think you are right on the bearings being rusty coz when I took it apart all the other parts seemed to be fine but I haven't taken it fully to bits yet as like you say once it's all in pieces it takes a hell of a lot of time to put back together.....

Funny that I just had my abu garcia play up on me same problem and it was near new. I opened mine up and the bearing was well seized so soaked to free it up then regreased it and now running smooth again. I reccomend shimano reels as they seem to last a lot longer everytime I buy something else it usually craps out in some fashion. Shimanos tend to last a lot better.

yeah mate I opened the reel up and found that the bearings were rusted so I sprayed some CRC to clean the rust off and applied some lubricant which got the bearings moving again but not very smoothly... went to the fishing shop to see how much stainless steel bearings (anti rust ones) are and they said it would be about 15-20 bucks each !!