# How much drag is too much?



## Peril (Sep 5, 2005)

OK all you big game fishers, how much drag do you use? Having been reefed regularly lately, I'm interested in upping my line and drag. Getting more abrasion resistance by going for heavier line is one thing, but comes at the cost of fewer hookups. The other part of it is upping the drag, which helps keep fish off the reef but comes at the cost of increased chance of pulling the hook or getting pulled in. Currently my heaviest drag setting is 5kg, which I think is manageable.

Looking for answers here from the guys that fish heavy and fish successfully. Couta1, duran, breambo, ...?


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

another drag question.....

how many of you actually set your drag to an accurate level?

Personally I always just test my drag by hand - if I can grab the line and just pull line off the spool then I reckon it's set OK (enough to set the hook in the fish but not too much to snap the line). If I need to tighten it up (or loosen it off) during the fight I'll also do that.

Mind you I've never caught anything really big so don't listen to me.....


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## Astro (Nov 27, 2006)

i too set by hand but when hooked up on big fish tighten drag up, being careful to put less stress on rod by pointing rod towards fish...

if the drag is not stopping the fish then i go for full drag and hang on letting the reel take the strain and not the rod too much...this is generally for land based fishing or if i suspect i am going to get reefed anyway......in a yak i will tighten drag until the fish is pulling the yak but can still take line if it goes for a extra spurt


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## rawprawn (Aug 31, 2005)

As you know I'm not all that scientific with my fishing. I also use my hand to test then tighten if necessary.

With most fish the Kayak acts as a drag if the fish runs.I suspect you are talking about fishing for those species which dive for the bottom (i.e. King Fish).

I don't know if it's all about how much drag your gear will handle. It will get to the point where it's more about how much drag can you realistically handle fishing from a Kayak before you either are pulled over or hurt yourself. Both of these instances occurred last time we all fished for Kingies off Norah Head.

Maybe you can try the heavier line and drag when we go fishing for Kingies late this month off Norah Head. I'll be sure to bring my camera and who knows I might be able to give you a new avatar 8)


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## pcsolutionman (Apr 9, 2007)

I reckon you king fish blokes should be looking at running 50lb braid on something like an abu revo inshore. they produce 24lb of drag :shock: :shock: in a baitcaster, plus have the additional power handle

in standard form










the power handle



















I have 2 of the standard STX's and they are absolutley awesome reels, the inshore however is built specifically to handle the salty stuff :lol: :lol: . Ill be getting me a couple i think :lol:

heres a Link to a review on them, really worth reading

http://www.tackletour.com/reviewabugarciarevoinshore.html

And the sort of fish these things can handle (35kg sailfsih)

http://fishing.net.my/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=12054

Lee


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## Breambo (Apr 19, 2006)

Very good question Dave.
We have been discussing this amongst ourselves and there are a couple of options.
First school of thought was to have the drag set tight, or locked, giving the most pressure as possible. This has a couple of drawbacks, its hard to get the rod out of the holder, the fish heads to the bottom straight away when it feels the pressure (kings), and my main concern is ripping out the rod holders and have a sinking kayak way out to sea. The boys use this method quite effectively however the other day no one could stop the hoodlums.
The next is to have a medium setting, which the rod is easy to remove from the holder, then increasing the drag as you fight. This method is good but you have to be quick. It failed me the otherday and I was reefed 8 times straight.
The other method which I have only tried briefly but am keen to try a bit more is the way Stuie showed me. You put the drag up tight put the reel in freespool (for overheads) with the clicker on and when the line starts stripping clunk her into gear.
The other day I landed a nice king with the alvey I was palming the reel and it just blew the guts out of the reel. I havent much experience with overheads but so far so good, I like them !! Ive gone up to 40lb main in mono and 100 lb 10X leader and will see if I can stop some of these locomotives.
I spose you just have to try a few different things and see what works best. 8)


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

My Answer Peril is a little bit like Breambo's.

If your trolling or have the rod in a rear holder a bit out of the way and not in eyes view I would go slacker with your drag (ive almost been tipped out several times / also broken the holder due to tight drags). If you are casting and retrieving or have a rod in a holder in close to you and you can respond straight away then i say crank it up tighter and then you can have a fair fight at the start and undo the tension if need be. I do my drag manually by hand If I can pull hard and its a strain then thats good - i'll back it off a couple of clicks from there. Doing it this tight - you need your drag to be smooth and not sticking as basically your back to fully locked there and its problems..

Woppie


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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

pcsolutionman said:


> I reckon you king fish blokes should be looking at running 50lb braid on something like an abu revo inshore.
> 
> Lee


I've got one Lee, great little reel. very light and casts really well. I don't know how well it would handle 24 lb of drag but would be fine on Barra. You can beef up the drag on most reels by fitting carbotec washers, but they might not handle the added stress. I have a Avet lever drag reel for my heavier stuff, has the drag and strength to handle most fish I'm going to catch.

Back on topic I use to pre set my drag, thinking that it was the right thing to do. Then reading that everyone else does it by hand I do the same........just shows you how easily I am led.  :lol:


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## fisherdan (Apr 17, 2007)

pcsolutionman said:


> I reckon you king fish blokes should be looking at running 50lb braid on something like an abu revo inshore


Just been getting used to mine, unreeel.. though more for cast fishing since no alarm and star drag make it harder than usual kingfishn' gear. Just using 20lb but may up that, also need new stick with longer butt as hooking up with that much drag in only one hand is precarious!


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## Peril (Sep 5, 2005)

Thanks for the replies. Interesting to see lots of speculation.

Lee, I appreciate your enthusiasm for your tackle. Will get my wife to make a back pocket for your singlet


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## DGax65 (Jun 7, 2006)

I just check my drag by hand. I keep saying that I'm going to buy one of those fancy drag scales, but I haven't yet.

Gear 
I only use overhead reels; mostly star drag Shimano Toriums, Daiwa Sealine and sometimes TLD 20/30 lever drag. Most of my reels are filled with 50lb Power Pro Spectra, but I'm going with 65lb Spectra from now on. I'm using the heavy Spectra because I fish around heavy kelp forests. We don't really have too much rocky structure to worry about. I go with 40 or 50lb short (2m) fluorocarbon leaders, for the abrasion resistance. My trolling rods are 40-60lb class and my jig sticks are 20-50lb.

Technique
I really don't like trolling with the reels in gear. I just leave the clicker on to keep some tension on the line. The only time I'll leave the reels in gear is if I'm using my lever drag reels. Even then I only fish with the drag set high enough to keep the line from running out. I use this approach for trolling both live bait and lures. When trolling in free-spool there is less of a chance of getting flipped or tearing out a rod holder. I can get away with this because the fish that I am targeting do not have very hard mouths. I don't have to get a hook set on the strike. The fish can run for a couple of seconds, I throw the reel in gear and wind for a hook set.

I have the drag set to full when I'm jig fishing (surface or vertical). A hard strike can really give you a good pull. To counteract that, I've try to take a couple of precautions. When I'm jig fishing, I usually straddle the kayak. It helps my balance and allows me to compensate if the fish changes direction quickly. I also try to keep my casts over the bow. That way, the first pull is on the long axis of the kayak.


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## yaker (Aug 29, 2005)

.


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## Guest (Feb 1, 2008)

yaker said:


> Some good advice ther Doug, but having seen keljad's kayak.
> 
> 
> DGax65 said:
> ...


No wonder he has back problems :shock: :shock: :lol:

Cheers


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## pcsolutionman (Apr 9, 2007)

ar-we-ther-yet said:


> pcsolutionman said:
> 
> 
> > I reckon you king fish blokes should be looking at running 50lb braid on something like an abu revo inshore.
> ...


They have 24lb of drag straight out of the box and they can handle it, I fish with 30lb braid on one of mine with the almost locked, i can just pull line off the reel if I take a wrap with a glove on and pull with 2 hands. I fish with the drag like this when throwing lures into tight snaggy areas for COD and JACKS. I had the drag set this way when landing that meter plus barra and it handles it beutifully.

Lee


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## DGax65 (Jun 7, 2006)

MacFish said:


> yaker said:
> 
> 
> > Some good advice ther Doug, but having seen keljad's kayak.
> ...


I never said that it was comfortable. In addition to being very wide, the X-Factor has sharper edges on the cockpit rail. It gets a little hard on the back of the legs after a while. I guess I'm not really straddling the kayak; i just have my legs out over the rail enough to keep my feet wet. It still helps me maintain my balance when I'm jigging.


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## ArWeTherYet (Mar 25, 2007)

Hey Peril, where is the line breaking?

With the total lack of give on braid, the trace doesn't take much to stretch fully and be prone to cutting. 
Grant Ashwell told me he spools 50 mtrs of mono on the end of the braid, that way he gets plenty of the stretch mono gives plus more line capacity with the braid in case the fish takes a long run.
I have Shimano Technium mono spooled on my overhead, it is very thin and low stretch, but has way more give than braid. Then run 3 mtrs of Yamatoyo fluro leader. That way if you lock up the drag you still get a bit of give and it is much harder to cut through line that has a bit of elasticity in it than line pulled taunt........does that make sense :?

BTW I'm no expert and quite frankly never seem to catch any thing big anyways  , but I've spoken to a few who do vertical jigging that have gone back to mono for this very reason.


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## slider65 (Feb 9, 2007)

I think it is smoething that you have to make a decission about at the time of fishing. I can remember many years ago a mate and i did a few trips up to PNG to chase them big and mean black bass, we were fishing 24kg plug rod loaded with 60 pound line on abu 7000c3 and we were doing the drags up with a pair on pliers as tight as it would go and it still wasn't enough. we did land some monsters but we lost a small fortune in lures every time we went. But that type of fishing is an exception, black bass are in a league of there own. they make mangrove jacks look placid and not to mention they grow to 100 pounds in the rivers up there.


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## grant ashwell (Apr 24, 2007)

Another "rule" I use is that when the line is singing I back off. It gets a high pitched ring about it and sounds like voices across the sea..( or maybe I'm just troppo having been out in the sun for hours) I'm up and down my drag setting quite a lot when I have a decent fish


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## Duran (Nov 19, 2005)

this is a real good question never thought of it to much before i just normally pull line off by hand and see if it feels ok. but just checked my drag on a scale and found that my mackerel set up is around 1-2kg and that seem to be fine on most game fish but my king set up seems to be 4-5kg but I found that if I feed the line though the eyes the drag is 7-8 so not sure what's up with that but as it is easy to get pulled off the yak i would not set my drag more than 4 kg and put extra pressure on by hand so that if u think u are going to get pulled off just let go and the fish should be able to pull line ok but I think it is just going to be a lot of trial and error at first


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## Peril (Sep 5, 2005)

Thanks guys


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## deano (Nov 26, 2006)

I use a lever drag overhead with adjustable drag pressure settings and I set the strike setting on around 30% of breaking strain and full drag at about 50%. I use a small fish weighing scale to measure the settings by attaching the line to the scale and then using the scale I pull line from the reel while taking measurements.

As I use 30lb leader on my overhead, I have maximum drag set at around 12lbs (with the rod loaded) which prevents me from having any bust-offs (usually lost fish are a result of my crap knot tying).


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Hey Peril

Just a thought - if this Q is related to the kings in your area I'm not sure on how you play them......... but I tend to take the fight to them and start pumping asap - I do not let the fish run without trying to turn its head in the process - this does lead to a stand off I find (some of the times) - which leads to a bust off from my leader knot breaking... but I dont think Ive ever been rubbed off on the bottom by the fish reaching it ( or I cant remember it happening in the last three months...). The fish I land I land ... the others break the line from too much pressure on the leader - but not from contact with the bottom. This means i would say that I loose one in five fish.....

I hope this is of some help......

There is also the softly softly approach mentioned before by others - and I think this depends on the take.... but if you feel weight and the fish hasnt woke up to the fact he's snagged then you can lift him up without jagged or erratic movements (ie no pump and wind) - but they soon go ballistic yakside which can result in some blistering runs if you dont land him then and there !!! So your kind of back to the top scenario....

Woppie


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