Max Drag

shanook · December 31, 2008, 18:57:17 CET

So if u are targeting alungi of say 10kg and having a 40lbs line you would set your drag at 1kg?? cause that will be 10% of the fish weight. With that type of setting an alunga which isnt a strong fish u will run out of line by the time u say strike, worst still if u hook up a 24kg tuna then u will see the line flying out.
I fished for alungi with 70lbs line tied directly to the cleat (ramio i think had this experience once as well, where he practically dragged the fish behind him or God knows how long before he noticed he had an exhausted fish on line). I also fished alungi with a 60 lbs hand held line no strike or max drag just one setting my arm muscle.
I fished alungi with a 30lbs line and with a strike setting of 12lbs.
but i cannot see me using a 40lbs line with a strike setting of 3lbs. I rate the strike setting to one third of the line weight. If i want to set the strike setting lower i use lighter line. I like to match the line according to the fish i am targetting not the strike set. The strike set is always one third of the line i am using. thats why i use lever drags to be able to set the strike tension from home.
If the momoi breaks at 70lbs than the gaffer is using a 70lbs line maybe with a thickness of normal 40lbs lines but its still a 70 pounder.

skip · January 01, 2009, 18:09:58 CET

It's a fair point Tony when you point in out in that way. At the moment what I do is deploy my lures, the move the drag up enough to prevent the forward motion of the boat and the waves/current from taking any line from the reel. Off hand I have no idea how much drag pressure that would be as it varies with the type of lure used, the speed of the boat and the waves conditions.

Thing is as I've understood the article, he's not saying set your strike drag at 3lbs (ie the physical printed words strike that appear on most lever drag reels).....he's saying you mark a position between 0 and strike that is 10% of the fish weight you are targeting as a reference amount. Aside from Everol reels no reel shows you the amount of drag pressure you have set. With that position marked you use this point as a reference or where to set your lever drag whilst trolling.

I agree to an extent that if you hit into a really big fish you're likely to lose alot of line but I think that only an issue on reels that are spooled with relatively small amounts like <300 yards. I wasn't aware however that you could use some heavy pressure on alungi and not worry about pulling a hook so that's pretty interesting to find out and I know you've been fishing for them for years. However I still reckon it might reduce your hookup ratio a bit.

So going back to what you wrote, if your reel can do it, your physically marked words strike would be 1/3 of the line rating and your full/max drag would be 1/2 of the line rating, this is how I normally have them too, though I've found that I word off the 1/3 strike amount and then see what I the reels gives me at full and bear that in mind.

If using the momoi I don't think I would set myself up for 70lbs line, but somewhere in between maybe 50lbs.

Thing with Alungi is that 95% of the time you know where you are, you're going to get something between 7 and 12kgs.....but with Bluefin that's a different story unless you visually see them. You might hit a 10kgs or a 30kgs!

That's what I like about the Penn V series, their drag adjust has numbered detents so you can set your reel up accordinly and change it in the field with no worries. All you do is map yourself on land once and then you know where you are.

Ultimately the bottom line is get out there and have fun, we simply don't get the big fish to have to worry about these technicalities like they do abroad

!!

shanook · January 01, 2009, 19:14:43 CET

u got it right there.

maltembu · January 01, 2009, 20:01:14 CET

Quote from: skip on January 01, 2009, 18:09:58 CET

Thing is as I've understood the article, he's not saying set your strike drag at 3lbs (ie the physical printed words strike that appear on most lever drag reels).....he's saying you mark a position between 0 and strike that is 10% of the fish weight you are targeting as a reference amount.

Skip in the article he's stating to mark the strike drag at 10% of the fish weight or 1/3 of the line rating, whichever one is less.. not as reference..

shanook · January 01, 2009, 21:29:59 CET

no maltembu the thing is that the lever drag reels have the word "strike" printed on them and at home u push the lever drag up to that mark and adjust the drag to be 1/3 of the line poundage once u have done that u decide what fish u are targeting like alungi (apprx 7 to 12 kg) take 10% of that which is approx 2kg and find where the reels stars releasing the line at the 2 kg weight. U mark that on the reel (thats why a reference) and troll with that line mark, when the fish strikes u move the lever up to the strike mark on the reel.
Hope i made myself clear!
What i dont agree with (and thats my personal taste) is that i like my drag to be set higher and once the fish strikes, after the initial run is immediately turned round and following the boat. Let me only state that this is not the optimal way especially if u hit a swordfish or pastardella. with the reel set light u have a better chance of hooking one. As they tend to hit the lure with their bills and then come back to eat the stunned lure(they dont know its not a fish)
with alungi it doesnt really matter.

maltembu · January 02, 2009, 09:45:08 CET

Thanks shanook, i don't have a lever drag reel yet but i'm in the process of deciding which one $:-\$

Thanks for the info mates

skip · January 02, 2009, 15:00:51 CET

Quote from: maltembu on January 02, 2009, 09:45:08 CET
Thanks shanook, i don't have a lever drag reel yet but i'm in the process of deciding which one $:-\$

Thanks for the info mates

Which reels have you narrowed it down to? And what's your approx budget?

camkev · January 02, 2009, 15:12:27 CET

I think it's between smano tld25 and penn 114

I would go for the penn 114...what do you think brother?

The_Gaffer · January 02, 2009, 15:15:10 CET

I have both reels maltembu, so if you want to get a visual of both reels, just say so. I've caught fish on both as well, and they both handle well. The only differeence is that the Penn 114 has a star drag system while the tld25 uses a lever drag.

maltembu · January 02, 2009, 15:27:05 CET

I have decided for a lever drag, i think it's between tld50II or the penn international 50 single speed.. Do you guys think they're an overkill for malta ? It's for my 30 to 50lbs rod.. For alunghi and maybe king neptune will one day send me a nice tuna

skip · January 02, 2009, 15:47:11 CET

If it was me and after having bought several reels including some overkill ones I reckon I would settle on the TLD30II. I personally reckon that the 50's are an overkill and the Penn 50VW is one big reel. If you want you can come over and check out my two Penn's, the 30VW and the 50VW so you can get an idea of size, quality etc. And you can also compare alongside the Okuma Titus 50W-II

maltembu · January 03, 2009, 04:50:02 CET

@ the gaffer & skip.. Thanks for your offer guys.. I appreciate.. a lot..

skip · January 03, 2009, 11:01:04 CET

TLD25 is a good choice as well, you could probably buy two for the price of the TLD30II, and then upgrade the drag with a carbontex one to give you more pressure in case you do hook into an unusually big fish!! Having the bigger reels is always nice but sadly we just dont get the fish for them.

If you're buying lots of reels the 114H or 114HLW are hard to beat in terms of value for money. If you don't need to equip yourself with four rods etc I would prefer the TLD25 with the drag mod.

skip · January 03, 2009, 12:47:53 CET

Weird! Just to add to this, I checked out the Penn US site www.pennreels.com and they quote the max drags on the reels as:

Max Drag at strike, and not max drag a full/sunset.

eg:

Senator Special 113H 20lbs@Strike
Senator Special 114H 22lbs@Strike
Senator 115L 23.5lbs@Strike

International 30VW 23lbs@Strike
International 50VW 28lbs@Strike

TLD 25 17lbs@Strike (22lbs at Max) - All figures freespool so will be less with line on it.

TLD 30II 24lbs@Strike (33lbs at Max) - All figures freespool so will be less with line on it.

TLD 50II 29lbs@Strike (37lbs at Max) - All figures freespool so will be less with line on it.

TLD 50IILRSA 32lbs@Strike (42lbs at Max) - All figures freespool so will be less with line on it.

The_Gaffer · January 04, 2009, 09:44:22 CET

Skip, I'm not as techy as you when it comes to drag washers. Would really appreciate some help in upgrading my penn114 and tld25 drag system. Any suggestions?