Breaking Strain

[Swaz]

Noob question everyone. When manufacturers state, for example, 9kg of drag. Does that mean if I weighted up the reel with 9.5kg of weight it would give? Anything less than 9 it would hold if asked to do so? Same goes for rods, I bought a2 -4kg rod. That related to line class right? So if I caught a 5kg fish with it should I expect it to break?

To me it doesn't make sense. If you talk about brake pressure on motor cars you use an actual unit of force or pressure. Not kg.

Edited March 25, 2012 by Swaz

[Blood Knot]

Noob question everyone. When manufacturers state, for example, 9kg of drag. Does that mean if I weighted up the reel with 9.5kg of weight it would give? Anything less than 9 it would hold if asked to do so? Same goes for rods, I bought a2 -4kg rod. That related to line class right? So if I caught a 5kg fish with it should I expect it to break?

To me it doesn't make sense. If you talk about brake pressure on motor cars you use an actual unit of force or pressure. Not kg.

Swaz -

A reel with drag capacity of 9KG is adjustable via the drag knob to slip at any where between zero and 9kg - depending on how tightly the drag knob is tightened. The concept of the drag is to protect the line from breaking rather than the rod (we assume that the rod is sized to suit the line). So back to your second question If you have a 2 - 4kg rod you would most likely have 4kg main line, tied to this you may have some leader material of either the same or higher or lower breaking strain. In any circumstance you will have at least some knots connecting your line to the leader or hook or lure. These knots will reduce the breaking strain of the line so we set the drag to approximately 1/3 of the breaking strain of the line - so in this case around 1.3kg.

So now (theoretically at least) your line wont break - because your drag will slip before the line is stretched to its breaking point. So as long as you are not using the fishing rod like a crane and trying to winch the fish up in the air (in which case you will be taking the whole 5kg weight of the fish as the water is now no longer helping support the weight of the fish- which will simply make the drag slip) you will be able to control the fish until you net it or otherwise lift it from the water other than by using the rod.

Hope this helps

Cheers Blood Knot

[Juggs]

Also add inertia of the fish, water pressure on the line in the water to the mix

So 1/3 of the rating of the rod is generally your drag setting

[Nolongeramember]

Noob question everyone. When manufacturers state, for example, 9kg of drag. Does that mean if I weighted up the reel with 9.5kg of weight it would give? Anything less than 9 it would hold if asked to do so? Same goes for rods, I bought a2 -4kg rod. That related to line class right? So if I caught a 5kg fish with it should I expect it to break?

To me it doesn't make sense. If you talk about brake pressure on motor cars you use an actual unit of force or pressure. Not kg.

The stated drag pressures of reels and rod kg's are a guide to how they perform. You can certainly catch a much bigger fish than those weights with them. Dont think you cannot catch a fish bigger than those stated weights. You can and do...

Without going into detail, the rod or reel should never 'break' no matter how big a fish you hook up to. The only thing that should break on an oversized fish is your line..