Proper drag for surf fishing.

[Jeffish]

Recently I've picked up some new gear. What would be a good drag setting for fishing off of IBSP? Is there a "Magic Number" or something along those lines? What is the downfall of having it too tight/loose. I know it's hard to be able to tell exactly what size fish you will catch, so I guess you can make adjustments on the fly. But what would a good setting be for starters?

[ped579]

For surf fishing Jeff, especially if you are dead sticking and not sure your sand spike will hold, is to loosen your drag so it does not get pulled from the sand spike and is dragged into the surf.

Other than that I usually tighten my drag on the fly.  I would not look to deeply into this as you can control it fairly easily as you go.

Plus by loosening the drag while in the sand spike will allow the clicker to sound out as well.

Happy Catching

Paul

[Jeffish]

That makes sense. Depending on the population of the beach and the spot I choose, tide etc. I may just use my rod rack as my rod holder. My sand spikes aren't the greatest.

[Pfishingruven]

 

There are tons of "technical" ways to set your drag.  I wouldn't get too much into it.  If you really want to know, I will post up what I was taught, but I can't remember ever using it.  You will get a feel for it after a few fish.  Like Paul said, you can adjust it as you go.  Just remember, when your drag is loose and you have a fish on, you want to tighten up enough to get a decent hook set(if you aren't using circle hooks), but not too much so your line breaks...and you need to do this almost simultaneously.  This is another nice feature of circle hooks.  You just tighten the drag and start reeling, no worry of having to set the hook.  In the surf, you don't have to worry about getting caught up on stuff, only where your neighbor is, so you can really let the fish do what it wants and looser is better here .  Rather let the fish run than break it off.