How do you set your drag?

[Acristickid]

How do you determine where you set your drag on your reel?

Have not put a ton of thought into this concept.

Guess I like it set to where I can pull line out with out any backlash.

Suppose it might be a lot tighter depend on species- you know, a 9 inch wild brown vs say a saltwater blue fish.

Are their "rules" or accepted practices for this? If their is I am unaware of them.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

Thanks

 

[jayL]

For conventional tackle, especially offshore/salt stuff, I have used a fish scale. Attach the scale to the hook and pull. Adjust drag until it's set to a certain weight.

For fly tackle, I rarely concern myself with it except for salmon season. Even then, it is a game of constant adjustment. With all of my rods, I can usually find the correct drag setting quickly. Until then, I use my rod hand to apply pressure with my pinky knuckle ala centerpinning.

 

[troutslammer]

trout is pretty loose for me , steel is still kinda loose , and i palm the reel , let em run a bit then maybe give a click or 2 to get em in , just depends on my mood and how many people are arround , by myself and water is cold i let em run baby

 

[bam]

Loose for trout, unless it's somewhere I might get into some big fish and then it's all feel. I'll set it tighter for other species.

 

[live2fish]

Mine turned all the way down, meaning no drag. If I need it then I adjust it. Even steelhead fishing it turned down then when I hook one it gets adjusted. If I don't do it this way I'll break every steelhead off on the strike. Would whether have them break off during the fight then right at the start when the strike.

 

[gfen]

I prefer clickers and my palm.

 

[osprey]

Palm and............ouch..........knuckles........heh

 

[MKern]

With just enough tension to not backlast the line when stripping to cast.

 

[Acristickid]

Humm...might try to loosen my drag some. Guess I have done some palming-probably steelhead.

Finished listening to Nervous Water dvd by Steve Raymond- enjoyed it- probably got more out of it hearing the stories rather than I would have if I read it.

Anyways- there was a story about a noisy reel I enjoyed. Might look into a noisy reel someday.

Never really had a fish into my backing yet- I shoulda put that down for a 2010 goal.

 

[David]

I will adjust the drag according to the tippet I have on. I will lighten it, obviously, with a lighter tippet. While I never have it turned all the way loose, I conversely won't put it close to the breaking point of the tippet either. I will adjust it during the fight if needed, but typically will use my palm.

One thing I will do on a long steelhead run is tighten down the drag some at the beginning of a fight, but loosen it again if he gets close to the backing. The water tension / weight of the line is enough to contend with at that point. I'll try and catch up to the fish and tighten down again. I tighten at the end to get the fish in as quickly as I can while still letting my hands free to tail the fish (or whatever means each particular landing calls for).

 

[dryflyguy]

I keep it just loose enough to prevent backlashes. Other than that, I really don't pay any attention to it. I'm just used to playing fish by hand

 

[troutslammer]

getting big browns in by hand is hard for me , i keep breking off , i get em on the reel as quick as possible

ps. if u want a fish to get u into your backing , use a 3/4 wt reel with 5 wt dt line , only hold fly line and 20' odf backing ......hehehee , atleast you can say u were into your backing a few times in one day , don't have to tell your buddies your rig !!! yeeeeeehaaaaaw

 

[midnightangler]

Never had a trout take me into my backing. There aren't many places in PA where you need to think too hard about drag. Upper Delaware, that's probably about it. I just set the drag low. Its better to fight trout with the rod, not the reel. If you apply the right pressure and move your feet to get in good position, they rarely go far.

 

[tomgamber]

midnightangler wrote:
Never had a trout take me into my backing. There aren't many places in PA where you need to think too hard about drag. Upper Delaware, that's probably about it. I just set the drag low. Its better to fight trout with the rod, not the reel. If you apply the right pressure and move your feet to get in good position, they rarely go far.

Yough, Susky, Kettle, Sinnmahoning...probably many more. There are plenty of places where the potential to get into your backing is there. You just need a lot of water and fish bigger than your drag. In Erie I could see it happening in the lake. Erie creeks is the only place I've had a fish big enough to do that and there wasn't enough room for him to go. But I'm not worried about what the drag will do when I hit backing I;m worried about the drag between 20 and 60 feet. That's where they break off. That first hard run if you are not ready. For trout I always have a ton of line at my feet. Probably my worst habit. But in Erie if you do that its gone.

 

[osprey]

A couple days on the Raystown with a fishing buddy , targeting carp with a fly rod from a boat and i learned more in those two days about getting into the backing and drag on the reel , than all those years fishing for our average trout and smallmouth bass , Erie is the one place in our trout fishing where i think you better know all you can about getting into the backing and drag , if you get into a big trout on most of our streams you can deal with it without that knowledge , but up there , the knowledge of how to deal with it , could prevent you from losing the trout of a lifetime. P.S. Your knuckles will hurt just as bad from getting whacked by a carp as they will from a big steelhead.

 

[afishinado]

I set my drag tight enough so a strong fish on a run would not overrun the spool and tangle, but a lot looser than the max to break my tippet. The flyline in the water creates a lot of drag and resistance. If your drag is set near the breaking point of the tippet / knots the increased resistance will pop your line. As you retrieve some line and the fish is closer, you can always increase your drag a bit to play the fish.


Flybop has a great post on what happens when a fish gets downstream in the fast water and the line bows in the current.

Here it is:

Flybop wrote: "As for holding the rod up high, over your head: 1wt, have you ever had a big fish get out into very fast water and strip a bunch of line out? If so, what happens to a good deal of the line that is in the water?

Ok, I'll just answer it now. Very often all that line in the water gets caught in the current and you get a huge bow in your line, creating a heck of a lot of drag, which only then tries to pull more line out, creating more drag... All of that line out does a few things. One, it places more stress on the knots, the hook and it also begins to pull on the fly at undesirable angles. Many big fish are lost when this happens.

What can you then do to reduce all this unwanted line and drag? You can hold your rod up as high as you can in order to reduce the amount of line in the water. You can even stand on your tippy toes. I have even been known to climb onto rocks in an effort to get as much line off and out of the water as possible."


HTH.

 

[sandfly]

Just remember the further the fish runs the more drag is on the tippet, on fish that run I back off the drag alot, then when they start to come in I might tighten a little. seen guys hook large fish and tighten or not loosen the drag and lose nice fish.

 

[gemiller]

My drag is on the loosest it goes, I use my hand as drag and If I catch a really really big fish that I feel I need it, it's at fingers reach and adjust it on the fly, but i think only once or twice I couldnt drag it out by hand, I feel more comfortable doing it by feel instead of the dial.

 

[beeber2]

Add me to the clicker and palm list.