Setting and Managing Drags on Big Fish
By Scott Leon Everyone's familiar with the saying ''It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game that counts.'' Probably less familiar to most is its unspoken corollary that winning or losing often depends on how you play the game. At no time does this ring truer than when an angler hooks into a big fish. Oftentimes, the angler's role seems little more than that of intelligent muscle, winding like a windmill while the boat backs down or hanging on for dear life when the monster decides to run. In reality, winding in line comprises only half the battle. Drag management makes up the more important half of an angler's game, often proving the deciding factor in many a titanic battle. You'll often hear captains talking about the importance of applying lots of drag on a fish during the first few minutes. And maybe you've been on the tail end of a fight that requires you to lock down the drag to get the fish in for a safe release. But sometimes the only way to keep a fish from breaking off is to ''light-line'' the drag. Most of us take drags for granted and treat them like a rotisserie barbecue - just set 'em and forget 'em. The fish hits, you jam the drag lever to strike, and hang on. If correctly operating a drag were that simple, drags would come preset with only three stops - free-spool, strike and full - and the lever itself would be useless. But that's certainly not the case. Pull on This Setting a drag is straightforward, but some simple rules must be followed. The one most often overlooked: The drag lever should always be at free-spool when making any adjustments to the knob. If you don't back off on the lever before you adjust, your readings won't be accurate, and you can actually damage the reel. Another common mistake is not setting the drag measurement through a bent rod, since 30 pounds of drag directly off the reel will test exponentially higher off the rod. Once you've set the drag for the day, don't touch the adjustment knob again, especially with pressure on the reel. Some mates might tell you they have no idea exactly what the drag is set at, and that may be true. ''We used to set our drags for giant bluefin by waiting until the angler's butt was a foot off the chair and he couldn't get back down. That's when we knew we had enough drag on the fish,'' says Capt. Jim Sharpe of his days fishing for giant bluefin in the Bahamas. ''I have no idea exactly how much that was, but it was a lot.'' Others mark their reels at exact increments so they can know the drag settings at almost any stop of the lever. Most manufacturers suggest setting the drag between 25 and 30 percent of the line's rated breaking strength at strike. Where you go from there comes from experience. Capt. Kevin Nakamaru prefers to set his strike at 30 to 35 pounds on his 130s, while Walker Holcomb, a mate on Florida's Double G, prefers a slightly lighter 23 to 25 pounds. Angler Terry Tri prefers a hybrid approach taken from a variety of captains and crews he has fished with over the years. ''I set my reels at about 42 pounds at the button, but that's above my normal fighting range of 24 to 32 pounds,'' says Tri. Remember that you set the drag with a full spool of line. Once a large amount of line has left the spool, greater effort will be required to pull off the remaining portion. It's a simple matter of torque, and the only way to compensate for this change in tension is to let up on the drag. Also keep in mind that monofilament stretches. It may not seem that this has anything to do with a drag, but it does. ''The stretch can cause the spool to deform. The deformation puts uneven pressure on the drag plates and results in a decrease in drag pressure at the same setting. The reel slips, and you bump up the drag. Then when the spool starts spinning again, the contact becomes more even. Now the pressure is even higher because the drag was moved up,'' says Nilsen. He also points out that if salt water gets into the drag, the system will lose pressure, particularly with drags incorporating synthetic materials. However, this should not be a problem as long as the drag is actually engaged. Where exactly you set the drag while trolling apparently depends on personal preference, and most captains have plenty of reason for their inclinations. The current paradigm suggests using as light a drag setting as you can get away with while trolling baits, while the converse is true for lures. Most crews pull lures with the drag set at strike and actually set the hook through the force of the drag. Some captains, however, including Nakamaru, disagree with this. ''I don't use the boat to set hooks,'' Nakamaru says. ''Jamming the boat in gear only pulls out more line. Once the fish takes off on its run, I cannot apply any more pressure than the drag already exerts, so I'll have the angler push the drag from the trolling setting up to strike, or from about 20 pounds up to 30 to 35 pounds, to set the hook. Then I tell them to back off again until the fish settles down.'' While Tri trolls his lures at about 18 pounds of drag, he bumps it up to 24 pounds and then uses his thumb to apply extra pressure to the drum of the spool to set the hook. ''It's a trick I learned while fishing in Hawaii that I have become comfortable with. You have much greater control with thumb pressure than you do moving the drag lever. It takes experience, but when done correctly it's very effective,'' he says. Under Pressure The time to really start pressuring the fish comes when it begins to settle down after its first run. ''Generally, though,'' says Tri, ''I don't get serious with the drag until I can see how the fish is hooked. If I know I have a solid hookup, then I'll start applying more pressure.'' If the fish stays up on the surface, however, Holcomb suggests that you leave the drag alone as much as possible. Nakamaru agrees and prefers to fight a surface fish from his 20-pound mark. ''I always tell people that you use only as much drag as you need. That's defined as just enough to keep the spool from slipping and allow the angler to gain line. It may be a tiny amount, but if that's all that's necessary, then stop there.'' For true giants, though, many suggest that the best and maybe only way to beat them is to apply massive amounts of pressure early, something most anglers are reluctant to do. Once again, experience can play a tremendous role in when to adjust the drag. ''I work between 24 and 32 pounds of drag when fighting a fish, and that's dependent on the feel of the fish. Generally, though, I keep the drag tight enough to gain line,'' says Tri. If the fish sounds, the ball game changes. ''That's when I'll start having the angler slowly and deliberately push the drag lever forward, just enough to allow him to gain line,'' says Nakamaru. Likewise, Holcomb instructs his anglers to push the drag to just past strike and fight the fish from low gear. ''I treat all billfish as if they were sailfish, and you just can't force them. You don't want any large movements with the drag at anytime,'' says Holcomb. Nakamaru likes to increase the drag as the fight wears on, too, ''especially once the fight hits 30 to 40 minutes. At that point I want to try to keep the fish from taking line at all. We just want to get it in and release it,'' he says. Nakamaru also points out that he'll put a lot of pressure on a fish if it appears distressed, tail-wrapped or as if it's going to sound and die. ''Sometimes we can save a fish that way. It doesn't always work, but it's worth a try.'' Today's modern reels apply a tremendous amount of pressure. For example, Accurate's Twin Drag 130 reels generate well over 100 pounds of drag, and according to co-designer David Nilsen, many anglers who use these reels routinely push them at up to 50 percent of the line strength. That means fighting a fish with as much as 65 pounds of drag. Although the reels can handle that kind of pressure, the question is, Can the angler? ''When fighting a monster on stand-up, the angler always represents the limiting factor,'' says Cal Sheets, a well-known custom drag guru. ''The reels are all set up the same way, with the same drag settings as you use in a chair, but you can only put on as much pressure as the angler can hold. I've fought bluefin with 110 pounds of drag before, practically lying on the deck to hold them. The only reason we did that was to get them in and released quickly, though.'' ''There is definitely a big difference between tuna and marlin,'' says Holcomb. ''Billfish fight with finesse; tuna use sheer horsepower. With tuna, I immediately have the angler put the drag on full and put the reel in low gear. Tuna don't know any other way.'' That sentiment seems to be universal when it comes to tuna - locked down and full out. ''I hooked into a bluefin we estimated at 650 pounds in North Carolina, and we pushed the drag down to 110 pounds while I fought it from the chair,'' says Tri. ''The fish still kept taking 200-yard runs at 35 mph. It caused the chair and the floor of the cockpit to vibrate. It was like riding a freight train.'' Let Them Run Anglers despise helplessly watching a fish take hard-won line off the spool. So imagine the sinking feeling you get after cranking in a few hundred yards and hearing the captain or mate tell you to back off the drag so the fish can take line easier. Or looking down at an almost bare spool and easing off the drag to prevent a break-off. It just sounds counterintuitive. But just as there are times when you want to crank down on a fish, sometimes letting up provides the only way to keep your chances alive. ''Whenever I have to turn and chase a fish, the drag on the line in the water increases, so to counteract this the angler must drop the drag back down to the 20-pound mark - sometimes less if he has a big belly in the line,'' says Nakamaru. Dropping the drag down may allow the fish to run a bit freer, but it also serves to decrease the pressure on the line. Lots of line translates into lots of drag, even without a mechanical device increasing it at one end. ''Once I have the slack in after we've chased a fish, then I'll go back up. But I'll even back off on the drag a bit if I have a particularly fast fish running,'' says Tri. Backing off helps beat stubborn fish as well. ''We'll back off on the drag if the angler remains stuck in a stalemate with a fish. We'll have him back off down to the strike setting and then apply a slight bit of extra pressure with his palm on the spool while we use the boat to try to plane the fish up,'' says Holcomb. Probably the most important time to back off comes when the mate is wiring the fish. ''You don't want the angler to back off too far, but you don't want to have to fight the fish at one end of the trace and the rod and reel at the other. I have my anglers back off to halfway between free-spool and strike, keeping some pressure on the reel. That way if I have to dump the line, the line doesn't part and we won't get backlashed,'' says Holcomb. A final crucial key to working the drag effectively is to listen to the crew. Most times, they'll let you know what to do and when to do it. Then when you go to move the drag, do so deliberately and steadily. Don't be timid about it but don't jam it, either. ''Being deliberate about drag movements is the best advice I can give anglers,'' says Nakamaru. It may also be helpful to mark the reel at the important settings you fish. Nakamaru marks his reels at the 20-pound point, while Tri marks his in 6-pound increments from 18 up to 42 pounds at the button. ''I just feel it helps me keep better track of where I'm at,'' says Tri. And even though most new reels will maintain a consistent drag setting for a long time, still check them every day. All that may sound like overkill, but that's how you play the game to win.
