How much drag can you hold/use?

[PlasticFantastic]

After a few trips jigging lately and talking to other people fishing I just wanted to know how much drag do you use in kg and what do you reakon you could handle in reality. I always get differing opinions some say light drag at first then if you're losing tighten it up or go for a heavier setting straight up. I was using close to 10 kg whilst jigging on the weekend and dont reakon with the boat rocking and rolling around I could hold much more, just seems to be alot of people think they could hold 15 kg plus no worries.

Just after some opinions on this matter.


PlasticFantastic

[Noelm]

a lot depends on the style of rod as well as the boat and conditions, like a stiff 130 outfit with full drag in a 4 metre tinny in some chop, would result in you taking an early swim, but if you have a well designed "stand up" rod and a reasonable boat and conditions then you could use quite hefty drag settings, though I am not fully convinced that heaps of drag is all that beneficial to getting a fish up, a good user can extract fish in quite difficult conditions and use far less drag to do so than a person with a new 'all singing all dancing" outfit in the hands of someone who has no idea on whats going on, just "use 50KG braid and stop em quick" is sometimes not as good as tecnique and skill and judicial amounts of drag.

[banshee]

Yeah don't know Noelm, I start with 12kg direct pull on a flat rod set to scales, this would kick up a bit again once you factor in the bent rod and reduced spool diameter after droping 80m and the last thing on my mind once I wake a kingy up is backing off the drag and risking fifty bucks worth of terminals to the reef.
Jigging is very much about short brutal up and down encounters and the "all singing all dancing gear" is designed with this in mind.
Plastic,don't know what sort of rod you have but the use of a full parrabolic rod (Smiths Freemantle etc.) will take some of the mechanical advantage away from the fish allowing you apply more preasure,you just have to get used to the rod bending through the fore grip, My young bloke just rolled himself up a rod out of a shortened Samurai NV 10-3 blank and it leaves my T-Curve for dead,this option would come in at about a third of the cost of a Smiths etc.

[PlasticFantastic]

I'm using a T-Curve 400 Jig Spin with a Daiwa Saltiga 6500 Expedition and 90lb Saltiga Braid. I agree with you on not wanting to lose terminal tackle to often it all adds up for example. Jig = $25 , Split Rings = $2 each, Assist Hooks x2 = $12, Trace and Crimps = $10 with the cost of all that on the end of the line I would rather do the drag up and risk pulling the hooks than go light and let the fish reef me. Interesting about what you said with that Samurai Blank I thought the T- Curve to be quite a good rod.


PlasticFantastic

[krazyfisher]

i use 10kg on the main one i use trinadad 40n and jigwrex but have gone to 15kg. 10kg seem abit of drag but i can use 15kg no problems just seem heavy