Reel Repair by Alan Tani

I lost a rod/reel this year.  My first mate forgot to back off the drag on one of SLD30s when he reset the lure.  He also forgot to put the clicker on.  I looked baclk some time later to see the rod bent because and albacore was skiing behind us with his mouth open.  My first mate later tried to loosen the drag by turning the preset knob.  I put it in freespool and guesstimated the preset.  A fish hit that setup and was peeling off line rapidly, so I pushed the drag lever forward.  Well, my mistake was that the rod was still in the Scotty rodholder, at least until the fish broke it off the boat, taking that reel and a nice Calstar with it.  Note that I made leashes for everything, but have gotten away from using them because if you do everything right every time you don't really need them.  Not sure if the first mistake cracked or weakened the rodholder, but the possibility crossed my mind.

So, I got to playing around with my remaining SLD30 and my SLT50W.  Seems to me that if you preset your drag so that at Strike the drag is low enough that the rodholders won't ever break, you coul idiot proof your troll setups.Seems like it will work fine with the 30, but the drag curve is to gentle on the 50W.  I ordered a couple of 30W Tiagras, and will try the same thing with them.  If you preset you drag so that "Full" is 1/3 your line rating, and if doing so means tour "Strike" drag is quite low, it would be a no-brainer to reset your troll spread.  Any thoughts?   

I set my LD reels, trollers or not, at around 1/4 of the lines breaking strength at strike for most applications. This way if I ever need more drag while fighting a fish I can push the lever past strike and get the extra drag needed. Of course that drag pressure is too much for most trolling applications for strike so I then just move the lever back to where a good drag pressure for strike would be. Doing it this way for me I know when I do infact push the lever up to strike I am below the 1/3rd of the lines breaking strength. But, setting up your reels this way for most LD reels will mean you will have to watch out how much drag is added when moving the lever past strike. I get a feel for this measuring the drags before going out. I have found just moving the lever just past strike in most reels the drag ramps up pretty quickly so be careful and know where the drag lever will hit the 1/3rd of the lines breaking strength.

If you do setup your reels this way and if you do ever move the lever fully forward into full you will be way past the 1/3 lines breaking strength on most reels, in several reels I have by different makers it takes only a slight to moderate increase of the lever to reach the 1/3rd. Also you or your mate still will need to get a feel for a good strike setting when the trollers are put in the water because you don't use the strike setting on the reel. It takes a little practice to get the feel down of a good strike setting when setting up your reels like this but soon enough it becomes a no brainer to do so. Now not setting the clicker....well that's another story.

Train your mate well and all should be fine. I was taught before the rod goes into a rod holder first to make sure the clicker is on and then make sure the strike drag is set right by pulling the line by hand to feel the setting. Doing this you will hear the clicker working and only then does the rod go into the rod holder.

Thanks for the reply.  For our PNW albacore, I doubt I need very much drag.  It seems lots of people get carried away with big drag numbers, but I set my drag to 18# on my scale and tried it out with my wife holding the scale.  Surprisingly hard to move.  Lighter is better for my application.  I think setting your drag at "Full" to 1/3 of your line rating makes sense when using 50# or 60# mono, especially when one considers that drag increases with more line going out.  I really like your method of setting your drag and clicker before putting it in the rodholder.  Nice way to confirm all is well every time.   

Quote from: SoCalAngler on August 24, 2015, 05:36:22 AM
I set my LD reels, trollers or not, at around 1/4 of the lines breaking strength at strike for most applications. This way if I ever need more drag while fighting a fish I can push the lever past strike and get the extra drag needed. Of course that drag pressure is too much for most trolling applications for strike so I then just move the lever back to where a good drag pressure for strike would be. Doing it this way for me I know when I do infact push the lever up to strike I am below the 1/3rd of the lines breaking strength. Also, like I said if I do need more drag I can then move the lever past strike and still be under the 1/3rd. But, setting up your reels this way for most LD reels will mean you will have to watch out how much drag is added when moving the lever past strike. I get a feel for this measuring the drags before going out. I have found just moving the lever just past strike in most reels the drag ramps up pretty quickly so be careful and know where the drag lever will hit the 1/3rd of the lines breaking strength.


Exactly how we do it and usually never have to go over the strike position. We also use the boat to "catch" the fish.
If you do setup your reels this way and if you do ever move the lever fully forward into full you will be way past the 1/3 lines breaking strength on most reels, in several reels I have by different makers it takes only a slight to moderate increase of the lever to reach the 1/3rd. Also you or your mate still will need to get a feel for a good strike setting when the trollers are put in the water because you don't use the strike setting on the reel. It takes a little practice to get the feel down of a good strike setting when setting up your reels like this but soon enough it becomes a no brainer to do so. Now not setting the clicker....well that's another story.

Train your mate well and all should be fine. I was taught before the rod goes into a rod holder first to make sure the clicker is on and then make sure the strike drag is set right by pulling the line by hand to feel the setting. Doing this you will hear the clicker working and only then does the rod go into the rod holder.

I understand why you may not need that much drag for albies but what if you happen to get picked up by a nice BFT? Many times these fish will turn sideways to the boat and just sit there, sometimes at deep color or deeper than you can see the fish and other times just outside of gaff range. This happens at the end of the fight most often so the fish will be tired and not able to rip off another 100 yards of line but being able to add a few more lbs of drag at the end game may be the difference of landing a fish of a lifetime or not being able to move a fish and the line just rubs and rubs against the fishes teeth, gill plate or the fish rolls on your line where only bad things can happen.

If your comfortable with setting your reels the way you like by all means do so, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

I'm in So Cal so no really big albacore around here, heck what does a albie look like it's been so long to catch any down here, but I have caught some larger models for us at around 50 lbs or more. In the PNW they can get to 70 or 80 lbs I have been told and if the longfin are around that means there is a good chance of BFT are not far behind.

Quote from: SoCalAngler on August 25, 2015, 06:31:54 AM
I understand why you may not need that much drag for albies but what if you happen to get picked up by a nice BFT? Many times these fish will turn sideways to the boat and just sit there, sometimes at deep color or deeper than you can see the fish and other times just outside of gaff range. This happens at the end of the fight most often so the fish will be tired and not able to rip off another 100 yards of line but being able to add a few more lbs of drag at the end game may be the difference of landing a fish of a lifetime or not being able to move a fish and the line just rubs and rubs against the fishes teeth, gill plate or the fish rolls on your line where only bad things can happen.

If your comfortable with setting your reels the way you like by all means do so, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

I'm in So Cal so no really big albacore around here, heck what does a albie look like it's been so long to catch any down here, but I have caught some larger models for us at around 50 lbs or more. In the PNW they can get to 70 or 80 lbs I have been told and if the longfin are around that means there is a good chance of BFT are not far behind.

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You're probably right.  I'm just trying to think of a fail-safe for inexperienced crew.  But if I can just get everybody setting the drags and checking clickers while holding the rod, we should avoid problems.  The PNW albies aren't that big, 35# is a real hog.

Here's an albacore for those of you who don't remember what they look like:

You just gotta know your own reels...

Most drag curves are intended to increase about 50% from stike to full...ie 10lbs at strike is 15lbs at full...if you are fishing 50# string that is just about right.

You only need about 7lbs of drag to hook a troll caught tuna and you generally have a lot of capacity (or should) with your trollers to let them run...I would much rather stuff a gloved hand into the reel in the endgame for a little more drag rather than break a rod pushing it to full.

Basically, always be comfortable with the preset at strike to be happy fishing the set up where you end up at full to avoid the problem you had. Its just so rare that you need more drag so go lighter rather than heavier trolling, imo.

I decided to go with 25% of rated line test at Strike, so 15# on the Tiagras and SLTs.  On the Tiagras, that means 26# at Full.  I'll just make sure every drag is checked every time before putting them in rodholders.