Thanks for the heads up Steve. It's unbelievable that any manufacturer would lock their drag at 10 pounds, much less 22 pounds. With the popularity of super lines, this truly is a bad move.

To Bill's point. I did make some casts recently with the line not going through the the line guide. I spooled up reels and rods late at night and managed to miss a few of the line guides on reels. The first thing you'll notice if you do this is the backlash. Then, the next clue is your line stacking up on one side. It was very early, but I did manage to figure out what I had done. I may never live it down with the two people I was fishing with.

I didn't think about doing it intentionally, but I bet it will pitch a mile. It was casting a mile until the backlash brought things to a halt.

Ive taken the level wind guide off of my flippin and pitchin reels. I've also removed the gear and shaft that move it back and forth. Works great for this application. The line does stack up in the middle of the reels, but comes off straight through the guides and pitchin and flippin are effortless. Sure wouldn't try castin far with it though. Back to the subject, ditto what has been said. I can cast my light lures far with my spinning reels, but can cast my texas rigs further with my bait casting reels.

Gone Fishin

Steve is the drag the thing that Bubbas tighten down with 12 in pipe wrenches to insure that the braid will not unspool at anytime - my guys will throw any reel in the trash that will allow braid to be ripped off during the hook set much less allow the fishy to swim in any direction on its own ! }> This will be the case until the production guys realize that they are getting killed with warranty replacement of rods.

That’s it Bill
I've had to run them out of my plumbing trucks and make them leave pipe wrenches alone.

As I was telling Bobby;
I understand but when they crank down their present drags, at best their getting 14 pounds( and then only with a pipe wrench) pressure. Add another 8 to 10 LB to that and there are going to be some major problems.

Steve

Sorry, but I have a few converse observations to you post.

Here is East Texas the Bubbas believe that any reel that cannot be welded down to the point of absolutely 'no slip' is not a reel that will be found in their boats. When pitching in the bushes they all use 65# braid or bigger and will not tolerate the sound of a drag slipping. No questions asked.

Truth is that a manufacturers drag pressure ratings are nothing more than hype. All reels can all be 'locked down' to the point that they won't move even with 65# braid especially if a heavy thumb is applied to facilitate the end result.

So does that mean that all the Bubbas here break rods every time they pitch a jig in the bushes? Absolutely not! You see, there is the human factor that you are not considering. And yes, you personally use this factor every time you go fishing.

When one of these Bubbas set the hook with a heavy rod using 65# braid and a superline hook one of four things happen. The fish moves, the bush moves, the superline hook straightens or Bubba instinctively reasons that: OOPS, I've reached the max. When this happens, he points the rod at the snagged hook and then figures out how to break the line or straighten the hook without breaking his rod.

Now I may have to make a qualification here and recognize that some blanks can take this pressure and some cannot. You will have to decide which can and which can not. I've use most of the quality blanks and have never had to replace a rod broken by 'bubba' hooksets.

So, my conclusion is; Any good reel today can have a drag pressure set from 0-infinity. It only depends upon the users desire and of course the users pre-conceived ideas about blank frailty.

Deleted



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2009 02:08PM by Bobby Feazel.

Bobby;
Thanks for the input I will rework some of my wording to clients to include not warranting rods on which the reels drags are locked down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2009 02:24PM by Steve Gardner.