Fighting Big Fish on Light Tackle - How to Set The Drag

Bob La Londe wrote:
Ages ago my dad and I used to set the drag on our reels with a spring scale.
We would usually set the drag so it slipped at about 1/3 of the line test
when pulling directly against the reel.

That being said I always wondered if that was wise or if we should have set
it even lighter. I have to be honest we never broke off many fish. If we
did they were real toads that wrapped us up or were just too big to fight on
the amount of line we had.

The reason I wonder about the wisdom of our drag settings is that it takes a
lot more force to strip drag through the guides of a rod arced over than
straight off the reel. We probably had a good comprimise, but I wonder if
we might have been more accurate in our useful setting if we had used the
spring scale to set the drag at about 1/2 of line strength through the rod
arced over... hmmm...


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