Trusting Your Drag

[FlatsNBay]

You ever watch the pros fighting a big fish? For many of them, during a fight with a baitcasting reel, they will click their reel into the free spool mode when they stop reeling. If the fish makes a big surge or run, they will thumb the spool to let out line instead of simply relying on the drag of the reel.

In all my years of fishing, I don't think I've ever done that. With modern drags, line can be easily pulled out without any issue at all.

For catching a big fish with a spinning reel, many pros will pull line from the spool by hand during pauses in the fight. My guess is that they want to make sure that the drag isn't slipping?

Once again, with modern spinning reels I don't see any issues with anything but a smooth and effective drag.

What about you? Do you trust the drag on both your spinning and casting reels? Do you do any of these habits when fighting a big fish?

[Capt. BassinLou]

I trust and adjust my drag on the fly when fighting bigger bass and peacocks. Free spooling? That's a  whole other level of drag control. If that thumb slips, they will have a line disaster on their hands.

[coldfront]

yessir.  drives me a bit nuts watching that stuff and hearing them click in/out of freespool.

learned years ago to set my drag tight enough that it would just slip a little on the hookset (hard hookset).  and to clamp down on the spool with my thumb on the set.  thank you Mr. Bill Dance!

[Hobious]

I trust my drag.  my thumb, not so much.

[J.W.]

I trust my drag.  my thumb, not so much.

Recently, I'll have to second. I've lost several, all on one reel, a KastKing Zephyr, because I did not trust the light drag on that BFS reel and insisted on thumbing the spool when setting the hook. Kept accidentally hitting the thumb bar into free spool and not enough thumb on the spool to mitigate disaster.

I since figured out that even that light drag is enough resistance to send a EWG home, so my hook ups have been fine since then, and I've quit cussing that reel so much.

[Donald Garner]

I trust my drag.  Never had any issues fighting the fish.

[apenland01]

I don't even trust my thumb to cast a baitcaster, much less operate the drag by feel....

[loomisguy]

I thumb it but only for that last hard pull or 2 right at the boat when the line is short.