The thread on the Alcedo got me thinking about my own reel, that needs a bit of service I suppose I'll get to next week. One thing about this reel is that it has the flat-out best drag of any reel I've ever owned, I honestly don't think it can be improved on.

Anyways, I was wondering what other folks thought about drags on other reels, or ways to improve them. With fishing season upon us, this seems timely.

Tim

I'm just putting together a spinning rod for popping tuna. Have an old penn 750ss that I am trying to make work. Ordered new carbon discs for it and it seems better but spinning reel drags have come a long way. Much larger drag surface areas now. Quite a bit smoother as well. I have a couple modern shimano stradics and the drag is just super smooth and has a huge range. Even the lower end of the quality reels seem to have a much better drag. I am in the process of swapping out the drag discs to carbon in quite a few of my older reels.

We'll see how the Penn holds up. Won't be using it enough to justify the new saragosa, but it might have to happen. I bought the carbon washers in thoughts of not burning up more than any added drag pressure. The other carbon washers I bought are for older level wind reels I use in the salt. Added smoothness and better range. Greased the washers with cals grease as recommended by others.

best light reel drag I know is still the old Mitchell 308. Somehow those two washers, one large fiber and one larger spring, provide a wide range of adjustability and smooth drag at all settings.. caught 25lb catfish, 20lb carp, and a couple leervis in the salt on this reel, all of those went over 100yds fast..

The DAM Quick 110 uses a similar system, large washers but not many of them, to provide excellent drag.

Orvis 50A is frankly mediocre, relying on a coil spring which seems to get old and permanently compressed quite easily, a drag retention push-fit circlip which is impossible to remove, and a couple of small washers. The 150S has a much better system with more and larger washers but still has that silly spring at the bottom. I found a newish spare spool for mine, with a fresh spring it's pretty good.

Shakespeare 2052 drag is well overbuilt for a light reel, think it would stand up to lots of big fish. Impressive.

Weirdest drag system I know is the JW Young Ambidex. What it should look like, courtesy of the kind folks at traditionalfisherman.com,



What mine looked like,





The fiber washer at the bottom was missing, also the spring/split washer. All the split washers I could find were 0.065". A washer for a 1/4" bolt should work, but couldn't find a thinner split washer.
Tried a couple of curved washers from McMaster, sort of work but still not much adjustability.
Lots of fiber washers lying around the workbench so that was easy. On the bench this works better than expected, still need to tie it to a big carp and see how it holds up.

One nice feature is once assembled the entire drag system is inside the retaining nut, stays clean and out of the way.

In the heavier reels the new stuff really is much much better.. sealed or semi-sealed, drag washers above and below the spool, carbon fiber washers etc. But that's not necessary for the kind of fish I get to deal with..

What you get with new reels is amazingly micro-fine drag adjustments. I set drags using my spring balance, and it takes 3 or more full 360 turns to increase the drag by 1/4 lb.
And especially on the good reels, those 360 degrees are pushing 100 detente clicks. It's not fair throwing out my Vanquish with its felt drag - the all-time engineered UL reel - but even $45 and $95 Ticas, $40 Okumas, $70 Sahara or Legalis, etc.,have wonderful fine drag adjustment and fade-proof drags. The other thing you gain with new reels is computer design to reduce (or eliminate) free play in the drive mechanisms and the engineering mechanics eliminating all the really bad stuff such as spool deflection and gear overload (brinnelling) over a wide real-world working range.

I've fished through some really fine reels, pushing them beyond their limits, Mitchells, Penns, and what's being made now has decades mitigating the inherent problems of the complex spinning reel mechanism.
Again, Hardy's 1932 patent was the space shuttle of fishing reels. A lot of people copied the ideas, but it wasn't until the past two decades they truly got empirical with the issues.
It's one thing to put double-digit drag load on a spool using carbon washers, but it's something else to lever it into the drive gears, and design a reel to stand up to it.

Just this winter I've been in a situation where big fish were sipping tiny bait, and the feel of UL made all the difference in being able to catch them. With that, it's nice to know I'm not fishing through the reel to land them.