SportFishing and Charters Forum - will 30 lbs of drag land.....

a 300 lb bluefin tuna ?
400 lb ?

a 300 lb bluefin tuna ?
400 lb ?

Yes, we have been doing it for several years in north Carolina. 30lbs should eat that tuna up in 30-45 minutes.

Yup!

All day long.

Much more than that and its either to much for MOST people to fish standup, or the riggng itsself fails.

30 pounds of drag is a shitton of pressure.

yeah i always wondered about that 100 lbs some of those big reels claim....
one would think a steady 30 lbs of drag would wear a pretty good fish down......
ive been thinkin about sellin my penn 555gs, which i have 4 of, and getting some of the new penn squall 60 models......

hell the dang things weigh less than my 555s do and can do 30 lbs of drag, vs the 11 my old reels can do........


think im gonna sell em and upgrade........
tx for the replys.......

should be no problem. This one was 89" long and estimated between 350-380#s and took 53 mins at 36#s of drag on a Stella 20000sw

cool! BFT on spinning is awesome!

For what it is worth it is as much about the rod the angler and the boat handling as it is the drag presure. but the short answer is yes. A fish can be beaten with less if the angler and boat man are on thier game.

For what it is worth it is as much about the rod the angler and the boat handling as it is the drag presure. but the short answer is yes. A fish can be beaten with less if the angler and boat man are on thier game.
That there Sums it up! :thumbsup:

For what it is worth it is as much about the rod the angler and the boat handling as it is the drag presure. but the short answer is yes. A fish can be beaten with less if the angler and boat man are on thier game.

x3

What is the Best rod type to properly use drag in the 30 pound range?

What is the Best rod type to properly use drag in the 30 pound range?

Assuming you are asking about spinning rods, there are a couple mentioned in this thread

http://www.thehulltruth.com/sportfishing-charters-forum/421341-off-shore-spinning-reel.html

Blackholes, Spinal, OTC are pretty tuff to beat

For what it is worth it is as much about the rod the angler and the boat handling as it is the drag presure. but the short answer is yes. A fish can be beaten with less if the angler and boat man are on thier game.

Yup !

Just hope that you don't meet one like this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INNjt_N6Hew.

130lb line and spooled straight down

Just hope that you don't meet one like this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INNjt_N6Hew.

130lb line and spooled straight down

WOW... I wonder how much drag they had on that reel at Full..

WOW... I wonder how much drag they had on that reel at Full..


evidently not enough !
would of liked to of seen that 1 for sure......:o

Just hope that you don't meet one like this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INNjt_N6Hew.

130lb line and spooled straight down

Thats more like it. We dont get our bluefin inshore where i live. We gotta chase em in 1000 fathoms plus. They like to go down.

and 30 lbs of drag will see your arse handed to you with a 100lb dogtooth guaranteed unless you are very lucky. Some spots its doable but most places......

It sometimes works if you go to freespool the fish will stop pulling. Go back to full and start cranking. When your at the critical level of line try it. Your drag hasn't given you the result you expected so more of the same is unlikely to change the result.
Think of the last time you lost a fish at the side of the boat. What did it do?? If you lose all your line you were going to anyway or break off near the bottom. This is an alternative that does work just not always.

If I fish for Giants, The key is to let them run hard with lighter drag... After that 400 yard run with their mouth closed they are pretty much shot for a while (No Oxygen)... This is when you crank down the drag and start gaining as much line as you can..

If I fish for Giants, The key is to let them run hard with lighter drag... After that 400 yard run with their mouth closed they are pretty much shot for a while (No Oxygen)... This is when you crank down the drag and start gaining as much line as you can..
x2

It is like a leverage problem. I broke 80lb braid on a big blue fin last summer at cape cod with 26lb drag on my stella. I set the drag that morning. and still managed to break the braid on a run that would not slow down. 150 lb fish can be taken easy. it is the monsters that you can't stop.

If I fish for Giants, The key is to let them run hard with lighter drag... After that 400 yard run with their mouth closed they are pretty much shot for a while (No Oxygen)... This is when you crank down the drag and start gaining as much line as you can..

+1:thumbsup:
It works for smaller fish too. That's why we generally set the drags levers relatively light until after the fish has run a bit.

+1:thumbsup:
It works for smaller fish too. That's why we generally set the drags levers relatively light until after the fish has run a bit.

Exactly.

And also, to ask that question without any comment about line capacity and the flex characteristics of the rod being used is kind of difficult.

One thing is that with modern parabolic bending rods, you are able to put much more stress on the fish when it is running with just moderate drag.

It's not like sitting in a chair with an 80 or 130 where the rod is basically almost straight out when the fish is running and almost all of the work is on the reel.

With a Stella on a Tuna Sniper on standup, for example, you can set the drag for big runs with "just" enough pressure to keep a serious bend in the rod and that destroys the fish.

Then you get it back - but still keep with big bend in the rod. It is all of that CONSTANT torque being put on the fish that works. That is how good guys can bag such a big bft on modern equipment in relatively short battles.

good info guys...
tx alot.....

One thing is that with modern parabolic bending rods, you are able to put much more stress on the fish when it is running with just moderate drag.

That's irrelevant if you measure your drag off the rod instead of simply off the reel. Measuring off a flexed rod accounts for the differences due to line friction on the guides. The fish does not care if the 30# of pressure is from a bent rod. 30# is 30#.

Choice of rod action is about the intended use of the rod, not really about drag pressure.

We catch 99% of our offshore fish on 50s set with 17# of drag at strike. That includes 2 Blue Marlin that measured to be over 1,000 pounds. Both of those were released.

The longest either took to get to the boat was 1 hour 50 minutes.

Try an experiment. Put on a fishing harness backwards and clip a leader from a 50# outfit set to 17# of drag to the back of the harness. Trot away from the rod moving right and left as you put distance between the rod and you. See how long you can pull that line off that reel before you have to give up.

Years ago we had to strip line off our 50s and 80s before respooling one spring. A friend had a Renault Le Car. It was about 20 horsepower or so and was front wheel drive. The hatchback had a smooth loop as a latch so we ran the line from 2 50# rods through the loop and tied the ends to the telephone pole in my front yard. Two of us stood in the street with the 50s in rod belts. My friend slipped the clutch into gear and drove away while we held on to the rods. He was able to get to about 75 feet away before the preset drags literally stopped him dead and he sat in the street spinning his tires.

Now the effect of the drags were doubled due to running the line through the latch loop that served as a pulley giving the rods a mechanical advantage.

The car did manage to strip the line off the reels only after we backed the drags off to almost free spool.

Blackholes, Spinal, OTC are pretty tuff to beat

dont forget about Phenix!