# Setting your drag pressure on fly reels



## mro (Jan 24, 2018)

Normally my drag is set so it's easy to pull out line.
Fighting a fish I apply some pressure to the spools rim as needed.
Fighting a "big" fish I'll add some to the drag but still most is done palming the spool.


----------



## Hank (Jan 14, 2019)

Completely unscientific here:

I pull some by hand until I think its right and then turn it back off a bit. Thats my "zero" and when I need to strip out I count the clicks lessening the drag then put them back on when stripped out. Its pretty easy to put some drag on during/after the first run rather than being broken off.

I can see setting it with a weight to get the feel, but probably not in the boat.


----------



## Bonesonthebrain (Jan 2, 2020)

What do you mean by seemed too tight? I usually set tarpon reel drag at ~4 lbs, after you get a feel for it you know about what that feels like. Recommendations are usually for 1/4 of your tippet weight for big game fish.


----------



## jay.bush1434 (Dec 27, 2014)

I saw that video with Andy Mills. Its on the Hardy channel BTW. Anyway, it got my son and I curious about actual drag settings on our fly reels and what they are really reading in pounds. So I pulled out my drag scale from when I used to do a lot of offshore fishing and would set the strike drag on our lever drag trolling reels. Just as an FYIl, I set my drags at what is easy to strip off more line or just a little bit more drag if I'm fishing for bigger fish. We measured our "fishing" drag and then the max the reel could dish out.
So from 6wt to 12wt, our fishing drag was about 1.5lbs. Slightly lower for the smaller reels and about that or slightly higher on the 10 and 12wts. There is a noticeable increase in the amount of drag you can put on a fish using the down and dirty/down and away method. Interestingly enough, we found that about 3.5lbs was as much drag that you could hold onto with one hand and the rod unsupported. Much above that and you will have to brace the rod on your body. One of my 12wt reels pulled 14-15lbs with the drag screwed down and me pulling down and away against the drag scale. My 12wt rod was bent deep into the butt section and I chickened out pulling any harder. Suffice it to say, we were both surprised how little drag pressure you really need when fighting a fish on a fly rod. It also showed us that we could pull a lot harder on lighter tippets if the pressure was slow and steady.

Incidentally, when setting the strike drag on a lever drag trolling reel, we would set it at 30-33% rated line breaking strength.


----------



## TheAdamsProject (Oct 29, 2007)

I set the drag off where by backing connects to fly line. I set mine a hair under 2lbs on my boga grip. I don’t worry about it much for redfish as I can get close by feel plus they rarely get on the reel but for the bonefish and permit I typically set it.


----------



## bryson (Jun 22, 2015)

I have done the pulley and weight thing -- I think it's a very good tool for getting a feel for how much pressure you are actually putting on the fish, but I don't use it to set my drag. For redfish I use the old Lefty Kreh (I think?) trick about being able to pull the line off the reel just with your lips. Generally seems pretty good. If I want more, I'll hook my finger around the fly line or palm the reel a bit.

Don't have enough experience with big tarpon to know how any of those techniques will work though.


----------



## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

I’ve always just pulled till I think it’s right so that’s worked so far. But I was trying to see if I could be more precise. I’ll look again on the Hardy video
What did find out was you need a bunch of drag to pull a 2.5 lb. weight off the floor


----------



## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

This is what it looks like


----------



## tailwalk (Nov 20, 2016)

I watched that video with Andy and the bucket too. I was also fortunate enough to meet him at a presentation he gave at a fly fishing club in Naples a couple years back where he set up that rig. 

The point of that exercise isn't setting your drag, but rather getting the feel for effectively using your body to put pressure on a fish. Bend the hell out of the rod without proper mechanics and the bucket hardly moves. Employ those mechanics, use the butt of the rod, lift with your legs, etc., and the bucket comes up. The point of having 12 pounds in the bucket is to learn how to pull up to but not beyond the break point of the tippet. 

As for actually setting the drag on the reel, tighten it down so that it won't overrun but that's about it. You can always add (and quickly release which is just as important with light tippet) pressure by palming the spool or weaving the line in your fingers and clamping down against the handle of the rod.


----------



## tailwalk (Nov 20, 2016)




----------



## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

Yea I might have not remembered correctly. I’ve been practicing lifting the 2.5 weight now I’m going to move that up to 12. Good practice


----------



## hillcharl (Feb 7, 2011)

I've always set mine so that it doesn't overrun or birds nest when I strip line off fast. Works fine for reds and speckled trout.


----------



## mro (Jan 24, 2018)

hillcharl said:


> I've always set mine so that it doesn't overrun or birds nest when I strip line off fast. Works fine for reds and speckled trout.


Has worked for me with everything, including Tarpon and tuna's.


----------



## Ken T (Dec 10, 2015)

hillcharl said:


> I've always set mine so that it doesn't overrun or birds nest when I strip line off fast. Works fine for reds and speckled trout.


That's my technical approach to the issue as well. No over spins and palm the spool.


----------



## redchaser (Aug 24, 2015)

jay.bush1434 said:


> I saw that video with Andy Mills. Its on the Hardy channel BTW. Anyway, it got my son and I curious about actual drag settings on our fly reels and what they are really reading in pounds. So I pulled out my drag scale from when I used to do a lot of offshore fishing and would set the strike drag on our lever drag trolling reels. Just as an FYIl, I set my drags at what is easy to strip off more line or just a little bit more drag if I'm fishing for bigger fish. We measured our "fishing" drag and then the max the reel could dish out.
> So from 6wt to 12wt, our fishing drag was about 1.5lbs. Slightly lower for the smaller reels and about that or slightly higher on the 10 and 12wts. There is a noticeable increase in the amount of drag you can put on a fish using the down and dirty/down and away method. Interestingly enough, we found that about 3.5lbs was as much drag that you could hold onto with one hand and the rod unsupported. Much above that and you will have to brace the rod on your body. One of my 12wt reels pulled 14-15lbs with the drag screwed down and me pulling down and away against the drag scale. My 12wt rod was bent deep into the butt section and I chickened out pulling any harder. Suffice it to say, we were both surprised how little drag pressure you really need when fighting a fish on a fly rod. It also showed us that we could pull a lot harder on lighter tippets if the pressure was slow and steady.
> 
> Incidentally, when setting the strike drag on a lever drag trolling reel, we would set it at 30-33% rated line breaking strength.


I've used Andy's technique of lifting a weighted bucket with a pully and got up to 16 pounds of pull with a 12 weight, but that was burrying the rod butt in my hip bone and leaning back pulling with my legs, down and away, all of the bend in the very rear of the rod, it was hard to do, and I didn't do it against the reels drag, I held the line against the rod handle.. Most people have no idea how hard it is to apply significant pressure with a fly rod. It taught me a number of things. 1. What it actually feels like to apply double digit pounds of pressure with a rod, 2. That a 15 pound leader can take almost as much pressure as I can possibly apply with a fly rod (hence no need for a "homeboy" leader) 3. How to apply maximum pressure with a fly rod. 

When I'm working on tying leaders I will also get wonky about testing the break strength of my knots/leaders. I was pretty happy last time when I was consistently getting around 94 - 96% knot strength without using a bimini anywhere in the setup, just blood knots, and Super Improved Blood Knots on either end of the class tippet.


----------



## permitchaser (Aug 26, 2013)

Hook up my 12 wt. With 20 lb. Ande looped directly to my butt section. Ran through the wheel then hooked it to a 10 lb. weight. Used my best impression of Andy Mill, low rod and legs, pulled that 10 lb. off the floor then I did the same with my 13wt. I'll go up in weight to 12 lbs. Next


----------



## eightwt (May 11, 2017)

Somewhere in the past i read that if you grasped the line between your lips and adjusted the drag to where you could just barely pull when you turned your head, that you were about right. Then again, maybe I'm just having a senior moment.


----------



## Hunter66 (May 22, 2021)

I just got on board of this fine website .
To answer ur inquiries about tarpon fishing drag settings .i m sure they re many .but one in particular did stuck to.me .i have seen on a episode of unfathomed featuring Andy Mill that he was showing the techniques of poullie lifting a 12 pound weight .in garage with his fly rod showing the viewers that Andy Mill uses that technique to calibrate his body and mind using his legs to lift it ,,under breakaway strenght of 12 pounds or 20 pounds (breakaway tippet )which is regulation and common with many tarpon leaders and also mostly taking in consideration that Andy shows us that we should teach ourselves and practice to use our legs and back to lift and not to bend the rod as much but rather keep the rod inline with the direction of the line once hooked ,,,,allowing the tip of the rod to dip in the water when legs are bended before generating lift and also fighting the fish with line held tight against the rod with both hands releasing pressure only when fish makes a run or ready to jump .pressure with hands are replacing the drag on the reel.in another video by Andy (still current) he explains about the 4 pounds of drag on the reel drag .he also mention in that video that a 100 pounds fish weigh only 10 % of his weight in the water meaning that 100 lbs fish becomes 10 pounds weight .taking Andy theory and adjust my drag to 1/4 of 10 lbs is 2 pounds which is totally not overwhelming the drag on both of my cheeky 525 reels .and totally doable with many other fine reels in the industry .setting the drag lightly is especially important as that (100 lbs) fish becomes a 100 pounds head shake when airborne ,,,which is also what another fellow described in a previous message setting the drag to peel off line comfortably by hand without a struggle to do so .i was fortunate to meet Andy at a show years ago and he very gracefully described live to.me his techniques which pound for pound make sense .good talk hope that was helpful and with hopefully this year behind us i wish happy times fishing to all sincerely ,,,,


----------



## flysalt060 (Aug 5, 2012)

The 2 videos mentioned above are Andy getting used to 12 lbs of pressure on a fish. Setting the drag is another subject. On one of the millhouse podcast setting drag comes up. A lot of tarpon tournament folks have marks for different drag. 6 lbs is pretty much max. And something I was taught a very long time ago, u don’t fight any fish holding ur fly rod up, use the butt.


----------



## Jason M (Aug 13, 2017)

If you really want to learn how to pull on fish and you can't fish for tarpon 60 days a year I recommend doing some shark fishing. 

If you can get some blacktips or spinners into a chum line you can really understand what pulling on fish is. You can do this with false albacore also but your usually in deep water and it's a bit more up and down. 

I learned from Captain Scott Hamilton how to fight sharks from a dead boat. Use your legs, in fact don't be afraid to pin your elbows in and actually walk backwards in the skiff and wind down while your walking back forward and keep your rod well below 45 degrees.


----------



## kjnengr (Jan 16, 2018)

Jason M said:


> If you really want to learn how to pull on fish and you can't fish for tarpon 60 days a year I recommend doing some shark fishing.
> 
> If you can get some blacktips or spinners into a chum line you can really understand what pulling on fish is. You can do this with false albacore also but your usually in deep water and it's a bit more up and down.
> 
> I learned from Captain Scott Hamilton how to fight sharks from a dead boat. Use your legs, in fact don't be afraid to pin your elbows in and actually walk backwards in the skiff and wind down while your walking back forward and keep your rod well below 45 degrees.



Good points on practicing with other species of fish. 

I have tried some of those techniques with the last two big black drum I've caught. They aren't drag screamers, but they do offer a lot of dead weight that is tough to bring in with a rod at a high angle.


----------



## Fliesbynight (Mar 23, 2020)

hillcharl said:


> I've always set mine so that it doesn't overrun or birds nest when I strip line off fast. Works fine for reds and speckled trout.



Always been the way I have done it. Works for stripers and bluefish as well.
Bigger fish I pull on enough to put a nice bend in the rod at about 35-45 degrees up. Brakes are applied and released with the palm of my line hand on the spool.


----------



## HunterOnFly (Apr 15, 2020)

So here we are barely able to pull 12-16 pounds off the ground with a fly rod. Makes me curious as to what kind of force can actually be applied with a spinning setup for tarpon. Observing some people fish Boca Grande they are using 40 lb at a minimum. Obviously they are fighting these tarpon more vertically than horizontally, but I wonder if similar etiquette should apply (~20 lb max) for ease of breakage in case of sharks, safety, etc..


----------

