Читать книгу The Essential Fishing Handbook - Joe Cermele - Страница 29

11

PUT ON

THE BRAKES

When it comes to setting the drag, lots of fishermen don’t have a clue. The general rule for monofilament lines is that drag setting should be about one-third of the line’s breaking strength. Say you’re fishing with 2-pound-test (5.5 kg) mono. That means you should tighten your reel’s drag until it takes 4 pounds (. kg) of force to take line from the reel. Play with a drag knob and tug on the line while guessing at the setting, but it’s far better to actually measure it. Try a simple 20-pound (9 kg) spring scale hooked to a line loop at the reel.

There are times when you need a tighter drag setting, but that applies only to

comparatively heavy tackle. Some hardcore bass anglers lock down their drags when fishing thick cover—both to get a solid hookset and to haul big fish out of the weeds. In testing different freshwater baitcasting reels by tightening the star-drag knobs as hard as possible by hand, I found that they actually don’t lock down at all. I could pull line from the reel in most cases with  to 0 (3.5 to 4.5 kg) pounds of force. With lighter lines, back off the drag a bit or risk disaster. Also, be sure to set drag based not on the line strength alone, but on the weakest link between the reel and your lure or bait, such as a knot.