How does lever drag work?

[ksauers]

I'm looking at a SX for musky fishing. The reels we use all have what we would call traditional star drags. How does lever drag work? How do you set your drag? When it's in free spool does no line at all come in if you reel? When you flip the lever to retrieve does the handle turn harder the more you push it to tighten the drag? Anything else you can think of to let me know how they would work for casting and retreiving large bucktails and plugs ,please feel free to answer. By reading on this site it seems you fill your spools the opposite of how we do. We use mono for backing and spectra for casting,you guys use mono for the actual fishing and spectra for backing for the capacity when runs are made.Right?

[Double Z]

Push lever forward. Fish stops.



It's like magic.

[coryellk]

Lever drags are great for trolling and bait fishing, dead or live, but they aren't made for all day casting. They tend to not cast as far because the spools are heavier than their star drag counterparts. Lever drags also require you to use your left hand to lay the line down when you're retrieving.

As far as setting the drag goes... each lever drag has a knurled knob on the handle side that places a pretension on the drag plate pushing into the friction washer that's embedded into the side of the spool. Like Dayle said when you push the lever forward, the fish stops because you're engaging the drag. Underneath the lever is a cam that ramps up your drag from minimum to strike and then on to full. The shape of the cam controls the ramp up, or drag range you have available. Turns on the knob, control where your drag range or window sits. For instance, on an SX if you could turn the knob counterclockwise to set the drag for almost nothing at first, 4lb at strike and 7lb's at full. If you tighten down that knob clockwise, the increased pre-tension will move your drag range to the right so that you get a pound or two when the drag first engages, 7lbs at strike, and 11lbs at full. It just depends on how much pressure you want to put on the fish. The advantage of a lever drag is that you can use a spring scale to measure what drag your reel produces at strike and full. A lever lever drag fisherman never really knows what his reel is producing while he is fighting the fish. Be careful with adjusting Avets drag. Always do it in free spool and avoid trying to develop too much drag. The sideward pressure the lever, cam, and drag knob produce develops a side load on the pinion bearing and Avets aren't known for overengineering their bearing sizes. Your SX will produce 6 to 9 pounds of drag all day long. It's a great 25# reel. If you demand 15# out of it, the pinion bearings won't last long. The reel tells you when you're pushing it too far by being difficult to engage the lever, or when you feel handle resistance when reeling.

Good luck. I hope all of this helps. They're great little reels.

[coryellk]

Oooopps. "A star drag fisherman, never really knows how much drag he is producing while fighting a fish."

[Russ57]

You can head over to where Alan has posted overhaul info and look at the pics. A star drag has the drag stack on the main gear shaft and the pinion gear disengages (for free spool). As you tighten the drag the spool stays where it is and you compress the drag washers. The drag washers are your effective coupling between handle and main gear.

With a lever drag reel the gears are directly coupled at all times. Think of it like having a disc brake rotor mounted on the same shaft as the reel spool. When you tighten the drag you move the spool closer to the rotor and compress the drag washer between the two. This has the disadvantage of moving the spool sideways and putting side loads on the pinion gear limiting the maximum drag before harming that bearing. With a star drag reel locking down the drag doesn't harm the reel.

IMHO a lever drag reel is best suited for fishing where the fish will make long, fast, powerful runs. The larger drag washer and heat sink surfaces are better for that. They would not be my choice when I wanted to crank down on a drag and stop short determined runs to horse fish out of cover. Nor would they be my choice when casting distance was a concern.

So if you are going to catch that fish in open water and can allow him to make long runs and tire himself out the superior drag surface area can allow you to put more pressure with lighter lines. If you want to hog him out of heavy cover and fish heavy braid with locked down drags get a star drag reel.



Russ
P.S. I just picked up a penn 525 mag and think it would be a good choice....some of the daiwa's too. In short I'd be looking at small surf style reels....abu 6500, newell 220, squidder/jigmaster, calacutta.....depending on line being fished and drag needed.