8500 ss Drag

[NeilD]

I am thinking of having a crack at this deepwater jigging and am thinking of using my trusty Penn 8500 with some 50lb braid on it. Does anyone know what sort of drag I am likely to get out of it with standard washers and what sort of damage am I going to do to it?

Cheers Neil

[Steven78]

I dont think you have anything to worry about. Set the drag to about 1/2 to slow the fish down until hopfully the fish runs out of steam

[mackmauler]

There not up to the challenge.

forget the drag thats only the start of the problems fishing like this. ill add the anti reverse to get this started ive had 3 go this yr in my lot, others will know more.

[SeaSaw]

I've been looking into it as well. The gear you need is fairly expensive if you want it to stand up. Must have an infinite anti-reverse and should be able to pull up to 15kg drag out of the box if you want to stop some of the big ones. I am looking at a Boss Accurate 665 reel, but they are $600 - $700. Expect to pay a similar amount for a quality rod to handle it.

Not cheap but you wil destroy a lesser quality reel pretty quickly.

Cheers,

Mark

[cyclone]

Neil yep we had a japanese jig fisherman on a charter this year with all the good gear I went up against him with an 8500 popper tossing outfit and he creamed me. The deeper the water the worse it gets as the mackmauler says the anti reverse is the biggest drawback, in 100mtrs of water the 8500 makes some very ugly noises. By all means give it a go with this set up but the drag will be the least of your problems getting something to nail the jig and a sore back from trying to put enough action into the jig will be high on the list.

Andrew.