SETTING YOUR DRAG

[ON-THE-CHEW]

What distance from the real do you pull line when setting the drag up close to the reel, just out the end of the rod or even longer. Just curious to see because when being accurate and using scales to set your drag depending on how much line you have out can vary the amount of drag is actually being used.

Andrew

[Captain_Starli]

i have always set mine so that the reel gives line when the rod reaches a nice working curve, remembering that as the line diminishes from the reel the drag setting goes up, so be aware that if you hook a submarine & it takes a whoooole lot of line you have to start to back the drag off as it runs.
that works for me..

[Tony_N]

Are you sure it make a difference? I can't imagine that any difference would be in any way significant.

Also, I'm told by my local tackle guy that officially the drag should be measured straight off the reel not through putting a curve on the rod at all. I'd always done it through the rod .

Tony

[krazyfisher]

i put the rod in a rod holder and move about 5mtrs from the boat than slow pull just to check than pull on the scales as hard and fast as i can as a fish would the distance is to give me an angle that i would be fighting a fish on.

I was just doing this last night and if it was just off the reel than how would I know how much pressure was put on the rod?

I was setting the drag to the rod as it is rated for pe4 and I can get 15kg on the reel so I needed to set the pressure for the rod.

[Captain_Starli]

Are you sure it make a difference? I can't imagine that any difference would be in any way significant.

Also, I'm told by my local tackle guy that officially the drag should be measured straight off the reel not through putting a curve on the rod at all. I'd always done it through the rod .

Tony


i think you should change tackle guys...
as krazyfisher said, he can get 15 kg of drag on his reel, what would happen if he was using a 15kg rod, whoops, back to the tackle guy for another rod..
IMHO a lot of broken rods are because of operater error, a lot are fishing braids with breaking strains way above what the rod can handle,& setting the drag to suit the line.

regardless of what reel, & what breaking strain line you use so long as the reel gives line when the rod reaches it's max working curve you wont break your rod. As stated somewhere on the site before, if you need more drag lay the rod flatter & use your thumb or a touch extra drag, but remember if you put extra drag, when you lift the rod it will put extra load on it & may take it past overload & you will soon have a two pce rod if you are unlucky.
i am sure there is someone out theer that can explain it better

[krazyfisher]

an other couple of points to remember is the rod can increase the pressure by up to 30%
and always test your drags cold as that is the same way a fish will hit and if you lose a bit when the drag heats up it does not matter

[Roo]

I think Tony is right.. remember your only setting the drag to aproox 1/3 rd of either the max load for the rod or the breaking strain of the line. experiment by setting your drag with tonys method to a safe fiqure of about 1kg on one of your 4kg outfits. then when you run the line through the guides and lift a weight of about 2.5kg (bucket of water with 2.5 litres in it), the rod should start to load before giving a little line. This is just to show how the working curve of the rod multiplies the drag load applied to the fish.

roo

[Jeremy]

I set my drags through the runners with a few metres of line out.

Jeremy

[Captain_Starli]

I think Tony is right.. remember your only setting the drag to aproox 1/3 rd of either the max load for the rod or the breaking strain of the line. experiment by setting your drag with tonys method to a safe fiqure of about 1kg on one of your 4kg outfits. then when you run the line through the guides and lift a weight of about 2.5kg (bucket of water with 2.5 litres in it), the rod should start to load before giving a little line. This is just to show how the working curve of the rod multiplies the drag load applied to the fish.

roo


i seem to remember something about the 1/3 drag setting being rule of thumb for game fishing where you can lose a lot of line. i think for general type fishing you can set your drag a bit higher.

[Jeremy]

i seem to remember something about the 1/3 drag setting being rule of thumb for game fishing where you can lose a lot of line. i think for general type fishing you can set your drag a bit higher.

Don't think so. The idea is to set your drag to 1/3 of the b/s under a slow pull. The faster you pull, the higher the resistance. Try it for yourself. So using a drag setting of 1/3 allows for the increased pressure when a bigger fish takes off at speed. This is even more so when you only have a small amount of line out so there is not much stretch available.

Jeremy

[Rocket439]

I do mine straight from the reel before i fit it the rod. set it at 1/3 of line B/S should keep you out of trouble.