INDIANANGLER

Here is a question for the surf fishermen on this forum:

When surf fishing and after having made your cast, what is the drag that you set your reel at (assuming you are using a spinning reel and not a baitcaster).

If it is preferable to keep a low drag to induce the the fish to run with the bait before setting the hook, then is the drag tightened just before setting the hook?

Hi Ashwyn,
The normal setting of your drag, would be 1/3 the breaking strength of the line.
Normally, one does not change the drag setting.
If bait fishing,open the bail arm,and hold the line lightly, to get the feel of a bite.
Then quickly drop bail arm and strike !!
Syd.

Ashwyn,

It would depend on the type of subsurface and ,to a certain extent,upon the type of fish one is after.

If it is a sandy bottom throughout, I would agree that one should set a light drag . Upon hookup, one may then adjust the drag to be tighter and play the fish until landed.

However, there are many places where the beaches have a mixture of sand and reef/rocks under the water. Here, some fish(GTs,coral trout,grouper) are quite adept at immediately seeking cover after being hooked.

If one does not set a tight drag initially, it is curtains for the angler - it is next to impossible to get the fish out without the line being cut on the reef/rocks.

Regards,
Kingfish

Lock it up for the cast. The last thing you want is for the drag to slip whilst you are in mid cast with a big lead 'cause the line will cut your finger - especially if you're using braid.
After that, it depends. You might want to let fish pick up the bait and run or you might be fishing into rocks and need to adopt hook and hold tactics.
There's no hard and fast rules but generally, as I usually hold my rods, I tend to start off leaving the drag tight and hitting bites as soon as I get a decent pull. If using a rod holder though, I generally drop the drag right off to avoid having the whole lot dragged into the sea by a decent fish.

Surf fishing is not only very rewarding, but also relaxing if you know what you are doing.

Since I fish with more than one rod, the setup is made of 15ft surf rods and bait runner reels. With bait runners you don’t have to change your set drag settings. The rig used is a simple self hooking trial and error design with 4oz modified pyramid sinker and size 3/0 -6/0 circle hooks.

The place I normally go surf fishing has a reef that runs parallel to the beach. The reef is not continuous and in some places the rocks are buried under the sand.

At times we do get reefed immediately on hook up. using wire is a option, but then the whole presentation of your rig suffers.

So if you want to place your rod on a rod holder and relax, get a bait runner reel and use a self hooking rig.

I must clarify that my experience is purely from a lure fishing aspect, as I do not baitfish.

Thanks a lot for the advice gentlemen.

The idea was to do some beach fishing with the rod in the holder. I dont have any baitcasting reels and I am scared to death of them (bird nests, et al).

Ken, what you say makes sense, keeping the drag high could mean the rod goes for a swim which will be a bit boring. Then so is keeping the drag too light where a big fish can strip half the spool before the drag can be tightened. I guess it's about balancing it between the two settings which can only be learned by trial and error

If you are bait fishing, get a conventional reel with a clicker.

You can cast with tighter drag, but you can leave the reel in free spool with just the clicker on.
Once you hook a fishing, just engage the spool and game on. You don't have to keep changing the drag.

But, if you are using a spinning reel, like Ken had said earlier make sure your drag is tight before you cast a heavy lead.

Maruthu