On 2/19/2019 at 9:01 PM, CrankFate said:

True.

Not true. Smoothness and magnitude of drag are not related.

6 minutes ago, BassWhole! said:

Not true. Smoothness and magnitude of drag are not related.

The magnitude of the relationship between trolling me from 2 years is not smooth.

Using a scale is objective anything else like pulling by hand is subjective. Drag setting don’t need to be exact so after using a scale a few times you learn what the force feels like and can get close enough by hand.

Most anglers over tighten their drags thinking to adjust it during the fight by loosening drag as a big fish nears the boat. The adjustment during the fight can be a mistake because you never know when or how much to adjust the drag. The results are a fish of your lifetime gets away.

The other factor is bass angler use line 50% to 100% stronger then needed to fight record size bass let alone 2 lb to 5 lb bass.   

Tom

On 2/19/2019 at 10:53 AM, Scott F said:

I’ve been using spinning reels for 50 years. I’ve never, ever, gone to all that trouble. I’ve always just done it by feel. If a small fish is pulling out drag, I tighten it up a bit. If a big fish isn’t, I loosen it. Always worked for me.

This is exactly how I do it.