Properly set, a reel’s drag system prevents busted lines and lost fish, but too much drag can be hard on anglers.
It’s very simple: your reel’s drag is a safety valve. When a large hooked fish races off, the drag slops to allow line to be pulled from the reel rather than snapping the line from excessive pressure.
However, several factors must be considered when setting drag pressure, and assorted ‘fishing experts’ have different ideas on what’s best! Here’s what has worked well for me over the years.
DIFFERENT DRAGS FOR DIFFERENT REELS
No matter the reel type, I always set the drag at what I believe is the maximum safe pressure level and leave it there! Anglers fiddling with drag settings mid fight, especially with big fish on, really annoy me! They are changing the drag pressure to something completely unknown!
Set the drag beforehand, while your head is not full of excitement and adrenaline, then lean back and enjoy the fight safe in the knowledge your drag’s set at a strong, practical level. Star drags and drag knobs: Found on free-spool and spinning reels respectively. Simply rotate them to increase or decrease drag pressure until it feels about right. Then, put the outfit in a rod holder, attach the end of the line to a pair of scales, and pull. This is the most accurate way to measure drag pressure, which also includes friction drag from the line running over the rod guides. Adjust the drag setting if necessary.
Lever drags: The best game-fishing reels are lever drag since their friction plate(s) offer more surface area, which minimises heat build-up and releases line more smoothly during long runs. With lever-drag reels the drag pressure can be adjusted up or down either side the pre-set ‘strike’ setting using the lever, but the angler can easily return to the original setting when desired. More on this later.
SETTING THE DRAG FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF FISHING
General-purpose bait fishing
We are talking about fishing for cod, snapper, trevally, gurnard, school-sized kingfish, tarakihi and other table fish, typically using modest-sized spinning or free spool reels holding 200350m of 10-15kg nylon or braided polyethylene (PE) line. Terminal rigs tend to be ‘flasher-type’ dropper rigs or lightly weighted stray-line set ups.
Because hooked fish don’t charge off at high speed ripping off hundreds of metres of line upon feeling the hook, it’s safe to set the drag-pressure to around a third of the line’s breaking strain – even as much as half if the tackle is reasonable and the angler’s knots are fresh and well tied.
So, for 10kg line, 3-5kg of drag pressure is about right; 5-7kg for 15kg tackle.
Soft-baiting and slow-jigging
These lure-fishing methods are usually performed with relatively light braided lines of around 7-10kg (15-20lb) breaking strain, fishing for the same species as above. And while incidental hook-ups on kingfish are common using these methods (ensuring quite a tussle), it should not affect how the drag is set – kings are trucks rather than dragsters, rarely running further than 100-150m.
The light braided lines used with these fishing styles would suggest drag settings of around 3-5kg, but beware. The rods used are usually light in action and reasonably whippy, while the hooks tend to be relatively small and therefore weak. And the dreaded braid-to-trace knot is often a weak point.
Many practitioners (including me) treat such gear like 6kg tackle, using 2-3 kilos of drag. This might not sound like much, but imagine a 3kg fish dangling from the rod tip of your light outfit!
It’s a strategy that works pretty well; I only ever increase the drag pressure when I hook a particularly large snapper or a kingfish in an unforgiving environment. In such emergencies, I sometimes apply light finger pressure to the rotating spool whilst simultaneously chasing after the fish! It works well if you don’t panic.
Heavy-duty top-water and jigging
In New Zealand we mostly use these techniques to chase kingfish, although some anglers may also target various species of tuna.
As bigger kingfish are usually found close to unforgiving structure, which they immediately seek out when hooked, heavy gear is advised, along with robust drag settings. However, after years of selling such gear to hundreds of anglers, I know many fishers cannot physically apply the drag settings the gear is capable of.
So, by all means choose a 24-37kg outfit to give yourself a good shot at besting these dirty-fighting beasts, but know your personal limitations when setting the drag pressure. This is especially the case with top-water outfits, as these long rods are levers that can work against you.
Ideally, you want around 10-12 kilos of drag with 24kg line, and 15-20kg with 37kg, but don’t break yourself!
SETTING REEL DRAGS FOR GAME FISHING
This is the domain of monofilament nylon – at least for the top part of the line load (‘top shot’) – as mono’s elastic nature helps prevent bust-offs that can result from savage strikes and fast runs that remove hundreds of metres of line from the reel.
Many game fishers set a very light drag when trolling lures, no matter the line weight used. Typically just 2-3 kilos so the marlin can grab the lure and easily move out of the lure pattern before the drag is slid up to the ‘strike’ drag when the fish is facing away, the different angle making for a better hook-set. Strike drag ranges from seven to 12 kilos, depending on the main line’s breaking strain and the angler’s inclination.
Another ‘stop’ is available further along on the lever-drag quadrant. This is called ‘sunset’ and is the emergency backstop drag setting should you find yourself struggling with a fish that’s especially large, settled and stubborn. ‘Sunset’ is typically around half the line’s breaking strain, but there’s no need to choose maximum immediately – somewhere in between usually does the job.
With stubborn fish, rather than going to sunset, I often find it’s better to select low speed (‘granny gear’) for more winching power and clamp my fingers down on the spool when lifting the rod, timing this with the rise and fall of the swells. You may get told off for this, but these strategies have successfully cut short many tough battles for me!
Nylon is typically around three times the thickness of braid of equivalent breaking strain, so there’s more resistance when it’s dragged through the water by powerful game fish at speed. The longer the line, the more resistance.
So much, in fact, that if the drag pressure is not reduced as line is run off the reel and spool diameter decreases during a hot run, the combination of water pressure and reduced spool circumference (making the spool harder to turn – effectively more drag pressure) can result in a broken line. As the spool empties, easing the drag pressure can seem particularly counter intuitive, but it’s the right thing to do!
Water drag is why so many anglers choose to fill their reels most of the way with very thin hollow-core braided line, then ‘top-shot’ it with 70-100m of nylon, giving them the best of both worlds.
Finally, no matter the reel, ensure the drag is firmly engaged/ wound down tight when washing the reel with fresh water. And wait for it to dry before easing it off for storage. BNZ
