I read that to help keep your drag good, you should back off the star drag all the way. On my old Black Max reel, when I back off the star drag, it gets easier to loosen, then tighter. This normal?

Yes

Yes, that is perfectly fine. I loosen the drag on all my baitcasters.

You dont have to back off ALL the way. Just back the star off untill it feels loose, thats enough. You dont have to crank it back.

You dont have to back off ALL the way. Just back the star off untill it feels loose, thats enough. You dont have to crank it back.

What I do.

Many moons ago it was almost mandatory to back off your drag, drag pads were made of cork, felt or compressed cardboard, keep your drag tight and you ended up with hair thin non working drag pads; in most of the modern reels drag pads are made of non compressible materials ( there are a few exceptions ) so keeping your drag tightened is not going to harm them; but one thing hasn´t changed, drag washers are still metallic and they are shaped to provide spring like properties, keep your drag tightened and those washers will flatten out and you´ll have to tighten more.

Some may say how much a washers is worth ? well they aren´t worth much, problem is that they will fail preciselly when you need them the most, I don´t see any need to have your liver twist out of anger when you just happen to hook your next PB and loose it because you were too lazy to back off your drag, it takes a few seconds to back it off and it takes a feww seconds to set your drag.

The devil is always in the little details.

Many moons ago it was almost mandatory to back off your drag, drag pads were made of cork, felt or compressed cardboard, keep your drag tight and you ended up with hair thin non working drag pads; in most of the modern reels drag pads are made of non compressible materials ( there are a few exceptions ) so keeping your drag tightened is not going to harm them; but one thing hasn´t changed, drag washers are still metallic and they are shaped to provide spring like properties, keep your drag tightened and those washers will flatten out and you´ll have to tighten more.

Some may say how much a washers is worth ? well they aren´t worth much, problem is that they will fail preciselly when you need them the most, I don´t see any need to have your liver twist out of anger when you just happen to hook your next PB and loose it because you were too lazy to back off your drag, it takes a few seconds to back it off and it takes a feww seconds to set your drag.

The devil is always in the little details.

X2......