Because most of the time with spinning gear, we are using lighter lines. Spinning reels are nice because it’s quick and easy to back the drag off on a hard pulling fish which is nice. You simply turn it clockwise to tighten and counter clockwise to loosen. On spinning reels, most of the drag system knobs are on the top of the spool. Or if you’re using 25-pound test maybe you just will tie it off to half empty milk jug. Yes you could tie your line to a 2 or 3 pound dumbbell if your wife has some lying around the house for toning her arms. This part can be tricky and honestly a good bit of nonsense has been said in this regard. So again what you’re doing with the line at any given moment matters.īut, generally speaking, 20 to 30 percent of the pound test is a good starting point. Now if you try to swing the fish, a loose drag won’t work and tight drag might break the line depending on the size of the fish. But for the most part, a 5-pound bass is only ever really applying a pound or two of pressure on the fight. So that’s another thing to be cautious of.

Now if you have them hung up in cover, then your drag can fail you a lot quicker. He’s not behind a door pulling on your string where he has tons of leverage. Just because a fish weighs 10 pounds, doesn’t mean he’s pulling with 10 pounds of weight. That’s what knowing how to set your drag means in fishing. Put that same line on a reel with a properly adjusted drag and I’ve landed a lot of fish double or quadruple the weight of my pound test. You tie 4-pound line to the end of a cane pole and latch onto a big catfish or 5-pound bass, chances are that fish isn’t getting landed. And it can give a light line of lower pound test, the ability to land fish it otherwise couldn’t. It can avoid knot and line breakages on last-second surges right when you’re attempting to land a fish.

You can cinch it down and drive a good hook, and loosen it up and let a big, hot fish play down before trying to land it. How you set and adjust your drag can give you power when you need it and forgiveness when the fish demands it.

Not so much because it’s completely necessary to land a fish, but it can make up for a bad line, a not so sharp hook and even a not really great knot. But I would say to me knowing how to set the drag on your fishing reels is maybe the most important thing. A lot say it’s having the best fishing line. So anglers will debate on what’s the most important thing in your fishing gear for actually landing fish.

Drag on reel