I need some teaching on Drag and some advice on a new rod

[chop]

Hi I have been fishing off and on for maybe 30 years and love it.

About 5 years ago I got into plastics but life took over but now I have time and some money to spend on fishing. I just got myself a stradic 3000FJ and spooled it with 10lb power pro and just used a temporary leader of cheap trilene. I had to test the reel out in the wind today and caught a flathead for tea with no problems with the line and loving the reel. The rod was pretty heavy in my arm after an hour but I am looking at a shimano mexican fire or the pflueger trion. Both of which I have had a feel of in the shops but am yet to try a Daiwa Airtorque which has my interest. Does anyone know much about this rod compared to the before mentioned? It is about 50 dollars more and has the fuji alkonite guides? Is this good?

i am really interested in drag though. I understand what it is but want to know how it works and how to use it. I tied a liter milk bottle to the end of my line and set the drag so that when I reeled the drag would spin but I noticed that if I dragged the rod without reeling I could move the milk bottle with less of the reel drag spinning. When I was catching the fish today it was really bad conditions and I ended up tightening the drag because of fear of losing the fish but and after that I wasn't sure what to do witht he drag.

Would any of you guys teach me about how drag works and how best to use it please?

Yeah after setting the drag at home with the milk bottle I had to throw away the leader as it became so twisted and the braid twisted all around the albright knot as well. I had no problems fishing though. I was really happy except for my old rod.

[tunaticer]

Basically, the standard way of setting your drag for general fishing is to about 1/3rd the breaking strain of your line. You loaded your reel with 10lb braid (effectively almost 20lb breaking strain) your leader you did not nominate its weight so for arguements sake you tied on 10lb line.
Close the bail of the reel and pull by hand on your line untill you have roughly 3-3.5 lbs pull. You can use a small spring scale if you want, but after a while you will know when a line is set well or not.
Do not keep winding the handle if the fish is running or you are cranking against the fish / snag and the spool starts to turn, you will fill your line with heaps of twist with a spinning reel. Only turn the handle to take up the slack line.

[Mossy247]

Hey mate, I have both the shimano and the trion, both awesome rods, prefer the trion as I feel I like the bit stiffer tip though the trion is 2-4 and the shimano 1-3.. either way both nice and good for plastics I have mine matched with diawa 25oo.
As for drag I think its usually third the breaking strain of the line as a general rule I like to be able ro pull it of the spool with my hand without too much effort, depends where your fishing as to how tight you want to go. I have lost a few good snapper this season going to crazy on the drag. Slow and steady usually wins out.
Tight lines - mossy

[chop]

I noticed the trion had a stiffer tip over the shimano both in the 2-4/5 range . I have a few rods in the the 3-6 kg range. I kind of preferred the mexican fire for the quicker tip but am interested in trying the Daiwa Airtorque.

I suppose with the drag I know you are supposed to set it to a third of the weakest breaking strain of line which sure you can do at home as I exampled with using a liter of water for a weight measurement. I googled about drag and there was mention that people set it before a session and don't change it but that seems a bit strange to me. I think I realized that the spool spins less when bending the rod as apposed to reeling because the rod is absorbing the weight.

To set the drag to say one kg should I be able to lift a 1k weight or should the drag spin at this weight? this may be a starting point for my understanding.

Thanks for the replies too.

[chop]

Basically, the standard way of setting your drag for general fishing is to about 1/3rd the breaking strain of your line. You loaded your reel with 10lb braid (effectively almost 20lb breaking strain) your leader you did not nominate its weight so for arguements sake you tied on 10lb line.
Close the bail of the reel and pull by hand on your line untill you have roughly 3-3.5 lbs pull. You can use a small spring scale if you want, but after a while you will know when a line is set well or not.
Do not keep winding the handle if the fish is running or you are cranking against the fish / snag and the spool starts to turn, you will fill your line with heaps of twist with a spinning reel. Only turn the handle to take up the slack line.

This I don't understand. If the drag is set for 2kg and I catch a 1kg fish the spool should not be spinning? I suppose it will always spin up until 7kg if that is the rating? So how much should it spin? So confused

[tunaticer]

If you have a fish that weighs the 1kg you have your drag set for you will not be able to lift it from the water as the drag will start spinning. You will need a landing net to boat the critter. However whilst that fish is in the water it will be effectively weighing a lot less and as it lurches and runs your drag will give the fish a bit of line under a preset tension so that the line does not reach breaking point.

As for the reason not to turn the handle whilst the spool is spinning with a good fish on, every crank of the handle on your stradic will impart 6 turns of twist into your line. whilst the spool is spinning you simply wait for it to stop then gently lift the rod tip then as you drop the tip you take up the slack by winding, generally referred to as pump and wind. There is seldom a reason to go wild with the pump and wind as it will usually cost you the fish and or gear failure.

The drag is for one purpose only, to adjust the tension on your line below your breaking strain of your line.

[tunaticer]

Also, a reel with a 7kg drag simply is a reel that has the capacity to handle and tighten the drag down to 7kg. There is never a need to exceed the breaking strain of your line and never a reason to set your drag above 50% of your breaking strain, 30% is the optimum setting for drags.
Once you have a lot of line out whilst connected to a fish every millimetre of that line is subjected to the full force of the drag and the fish so any minor defect in the line comes into play and often does with a breakage. Ususally knots let go of leaders get rubbed off.
A 1kg fish can easily make your 2kg drag setting start to spin. Do not worry about your spinning spool, let it happen then when it stops start the lift and wind down regimen.

P.S. My gradfather now 92 still does not understand the drag concept and continually cranks his reel handle on the lift and the drop and when the drag is running. After every trip he bitches like crazy that the lines these days are shit, twisting like crazy. No amount of coaching for him changes this because he thinks he has to get that fish into the kreel before it gets off. The mindset of his upbringing i guess.

Fishing is a relaxing sport even when you are hooked up to a big fish, relax and let your drag do its work, then when it stops you have a chance to regain some line. The fish will tire quickly and you will have a docile fish to land.

[krazyfisher]

a drag set at 1 kg will not spin with 1kg of force, now think of a car it may weight 2ton but it could pull a 3ton trailer so a 1kg fish may pull more than its weight... understand?

as for drag general rule I use is if you set your reel at 3kg than try to lift something that weights 3kg you should lift it........ the reason is the rod will put extra resistance on the line. so back to the 3kg straight pull off the reel this will end up at around 4.5kg give or take with the rod loaded up. so I work on setting the drag at 1/3 off the reel or 1/2 over a loaded rod. hope that helps

[Timfishin4fun]

a drag set at 1 kg will not spin with 1kg of force, now think of a car it may weight 2ton but it could pull a 3ton trailer so a 1kg fish may pull more than its weight... understand?

as for drag general rule I use is if you set your reel at 3kg than try to lift something that weights 3kg you should lift it........ the reason is the rod will put extra resistance on the line. so back to the 3kg straight pull off the reel this will end up at around 4.5kg give or take with the rod loaded up. so I work on setting the drag at 1/3 off the reel or 1/2 over a loaded rod. hope that helps

Just becareful playing with lifting objects by the rod tip. It will not take much to snap the end off. This is called high sticking.

Best setting the drag on around 45 degree angle or working angle of the rod.

And yes the idea is set your drag and not to touch it for the rest of the day. On the smaller stuff it probably won't change so much but you should test your drag settings after a trip and set for the next one.

You also have to remember if fishing sand or mud with nothing the fish can snag you on you can fish any drag but sometimes close to structure you need to go up a bit to half line rating.

When you set the drag try to count the difference in clicks between the two, so in a battle you can up the drag with no worry of going too far.

Timbo

[banshee]

The reason the drag is set to 1/3 of line breaking strain is because of mechanical advantage (for want of a better term?),as line disappears the outer circumfrance or drum size becomes smaller,the smaller it gets the more force is needed to pull the line off.So if you have a fish that has taken half of your line the drag presure could be double or more of the original seting.Keep in mind that knots will lower the stated breaking strain of line,some more so than others.

[fish'n'chippy]

chop,
drag settings is a fairly contensious issue, some do it this way, some that way and others do it entirely different. what the basic principle is, is that the drag will allow the spool to slip before the line reaches it's breaking point.
this is the physics on the principle of a drag.
drags work on friction. the amount of force required to start the spool spinning against the drag will always be higher than the amount of force required to keep it spinning. this is the affect of static friction (when the spool is not turning) and kinetic friction (when the spool is turning). there is a 'coefficient of friction' which relates to the effect that each type of material has on each other (ie. the 2 different materials that make up your drag washers) and it's value is different for each type of friction (higher for static friction than kinetic friction). you must also concider inertia, this discribes the resistance of the spool itself to changing from stationary to spinning (and is relative to it's mass).
leverage (or mechanical advantage) is also a concideration when dealing with drag pressures as it affects the amount of force acting against the spool. the larger the diameter of the spool (relative to the diameter of the drag) the easier it is to overcome friction. as the diameter decreases, more force is required to overcome friction (drag pressure increases as the amount of line on the spool decreases)
the elephant in the room is heat. friction causes heat, which lowers the COF, making the drag less efficient resulting in a lesser amount of force required to make the drag slip.

as for the drag setting, 1/3rd of the breaking strain is a very high safety margin, this is more important when targeting large/fast running fish, like pelagics, where the strike is high impact and inertia is increased (Force = mass x acceleration). also these fish have the ability to take loads of line, reducing the diameter on the spool and increasing the drag pressure. OR, in the case of fishing light line classes where the margins for error are greatly reduced.

preset your drag and apply more pressure with a finger/thumb on the spool if required, but don't worry about it slipping, it is what it is designed to do......

[NAGG]

Personally I feel with the use of braid the whole 1/3rd rule has gone out the window as many break well over their stated strains - I also wouldn't want to be fishing 1/3rd when fishing for Jacks or bass (in the snags) on 10lb braid - or if using 4lb leader for bream .......... there is more to it! The 1/3rd method was adopted by the sport and game fishing fraternity (pretest line) which was best suited for sport / game fishing with monofilament in open water.
The best thing to do is learn what your system (line , leader , knots & drags) will handle ....... ie measure it (failure point) then grab a few wraps of line and try pulling it off the reel .......... learn the resistance and set from there (30-50% less) . Then try it through the rod by tying off on a heavy object 5M away and slowly load it by raising the rod tip (do not go above 45-50deg above horizontal as the rod my go bang!....ie highstick) ...... now walk backwards and take note of how it feels & note how the rod is loading (be mindful of the rods rating first) .
The more you do this the more confidence you will have in your fishing system and be able to adapt to the various situations - It takes time but is much better than using an arbitrary setting that may have no relevance in your fishing system .
IMO it is more important to understand the limitations and work back from there...... certainly better than not knowing the limitations.
There are other things to take into consideration , like backing off a drag when a fish has run (pressure increases as the line load diminishes) and back off the drag as a fish tires. Jig heads ( can they handle the drag pressure setting) .
By having a greater understanding of my systems limitations - I know I can fish lighter lines much harder than what I did in the past ......... fishing lighter often means more fish (certainly bites) ....... & that's a good thing

Chris

[chop]

Thanks everyone. All this info has really helped me.