Drag preventative maintenance

A good word of advice to prolong the life of your drag washers, be they a wet drag system or a dry drag system.  Always back off the drag tension when you are done fishing for the day,  it doesn’t take long to reset the next time you use them.

2 thoughts on “Drag preventative maintenance”

  1. Morning Jon,

    Thanks for that advice. As an “amateur” fisherman I haven’t gotten a feel for setting my drag on my spinning and casting reels. Is there any rule of thumb for doing this? What are the variables?

    This is mostly for bass (lake) fishing and some steelhead (river) fishing.

    Have a great one.

    1. Hello Stephen,

      Setting your drag is something that will become second nature to you in time. There are many variables that come into play, such as species fishing for, and the cover which you are fishing, but a basic rule of thumb for setting your drag on your fishing reel, whether it is a spinning reel or a casting reel, is 30% to 35% of your line weight. For example, if if you are fishing 12 pound line, you can set at 4 pounds of drag pressure. Then you can adjust as needed for more or less pressure during the fight.
      This of course is just a suggestion, and not many people carry around a scale in their pockets all the time to check.
      Another way to check without using a scale is to run the line through the guides and tie off to something stationary. Load up the fishing rod by pulling back on the rod. You can then set to the desired pressure you want by feeling the fishing rod/reel system in action.

Leave a Reply