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A Reel Drag
by Brion Babbitt

That’s what some anglers may find the mechanics of setting their drags: a “real drag.” There’s actually nothing mystical about it. I set all of my reel drags – twist knob, star drag or lever – at 25% of the breaking strength of the line. For example, my 30-pound-class outfit is set to about 8 pounds. Experienced hands may be able to adjust their drag by “feel,” and that’s fine if their senses are reasonably accurate and they’re dealing with light tackle. Being slightly off when searching for inshore denizens is no big deal. But for big game and heavy lines, it’s best to go with an accurate hand scale to achieve a precise setting.

I bought a precision hand scale years ago and use it when setting the drags on my 30 and 50-pound-class offshore outfits. To set the drag on any outfit, I place the rod and reel in a holder and pull off at least 30 feet of line beyond the rod tip. Then, using the hand scale I make at least three pulls to make sure the drag tension is properly set. With big-game equipment, some pros prefer to pull line from the reel a couple of times, running the line out fast off the reel before fine-tuning the drag. This process “loosens” the drag washer surfaces priming them before adjustment.

Where many anglers go wrong is in fiddling with the drag setting once they’ve hooked a fish. This could be disastrous, and for one big reason you may not suspect. The physics of a reel’s drag requires that as line is pulled from the spool the tension on the line is automatically increased. Or, in other words, when the amount of line on your spool has shrunk to half the original thickness on the spool, the drag setting is “automatically” doubled. For example, if you set your 12-pound-test line to 3 pounds of drag at full spool with your spool holding 200 yards of line, the drag tension is “automatically” increased to 6 pounds when 100 yards is pulled off the spool by a fish.

Furthermore, there is an additional tension component on the 100 yards of line in the water: friction along its surface created by the water. Because, as Sir Isaac Newton found a long time ago, every force has an equal and opposite force. The line being pulled out by the fish through the water has a resistive “back force” applied to the line, in effect increasing the amount of drag tension the line must withstand. Add these factors together and it’s easy to see why touching – and especially increasing – a drag during battle can have an immediate and undesirable effect. The prudent fisherman may in fact need to DECREASE the amount of drag in the event of a long runoff that takes him down to less than half spool.

Brion Babbitt