lever drags

[Herbs73]

What is the general opinion on lever drag reels. ive not owned but but am considering it as i fully inted to catch a decent tope before i die (hopefully much sooner like this year) i have a pair of original abu 7000's, penn 525 mags and penn fathoms so di really need one ?. a friend of mine services  and repairs reels and he doesnt have a good opinion of them unless a lot of money is spent.  i was looking at the penn 15 fathom lever drags and shimano speed master.  or should i buy another rod ? 

 

TIA 

. 

[Andy135]

Personally I love lever drags. So quick & simple to adjust the drag on the fly. All you need to remember with lever drags is not to adjust the pre-load when the lever is engaged. Pre-load adjustment should only be done with the reel out of gear, or it can crush the bearings, which is probably why some people don't rate LD's or think they're fragile. They're not - it's usually user error that causes problems. Avet reels are my favourite, but there are of course other brands available.

For balance, I also use star drags and would have no problem using them for tope either. I rate the Penn Fathoms so if you already have some of these I'd say you probably don't need a LD, but take a look at the Avets and you may decide you want one 😉

[Herbs73]

Thanks for the reply Andy. To get a lever drag into free spool do you just reduce the drag ? and does this allow casting and letting out line for uptiding etc ?

i think its definately a case of want rather than need, but can you have enough reels ? i will have a look at the Avets. 

[Saintly Fish]

@Herbs73 I think it depends on what type of fishing you do as to whether you need lever drag or not. I fish with both lever and star, I don't really see too much advantage to a lever if I'm honest. A star drag is just as easy to adjust, very rarely do you need to lock up a reel with the lever. 
@Andy135 likes them because of the fight some of his bullhuss give! But for most normal fishing (tope included) a decent make of star drag is fine. 

[Andy135]

26 minutes ago, Herbs73 said:

To get a lever drag into free spool do you just reduce the drag ? and does this allow casting and letting out line for uptiding etc ?

Yes, that's exactly right. Move the lever all the way back towards you - there's usually a notch you can feel that indicates when the reel is in free spool.

[Herbs73]

So we fish in the same area Jon, do you find you can use the reel for all the types of fishing you do ? 

[Andy135]

1 minute ago, JonC said:

Are you fishing in the Brightlingsea comp this year? I’m planning to and hopefully getting a guest appearance on board from @Andy135if he can’t think of a decent excuse before it happens. 

 I'll be there... unless you can think of a decent reason to uninvite me... 😱

[Herbs73]

I didn’t even know there was a Brightlingsea comp, who organises it. 

[Odyssey]

Lever drags are great for when you want to vary the drag…. I use them a lot for sharking etc. I also use them for light lure work when a pollack etc can hit the lure hard. 
 

For my general uptiding I use a star drag. Works fine, easy to use…. If you don’t want to fine tune the drag don’t use a lever drag, just use a star drag and save your £££ 🙂 

[suzook12]

In this part of the world, tope fishing is done with just enough drag to hold against the tide so the fish can run, the up the drag gradually until you stop it..... Far easier with a lever drag, at least for me. I use charter specials and have no complaints.

Far easier for fishing running type fish but not strictly necessary. I use my charter specials for all my fishing round here , including uptiding and downtiding

[GPSguru]

On 3/7/2023 at 3:10 PM, JonC said:

Mick who I often fish with has now bought 4 of those penn fathoms replacing 7000s as he likes them so much. 

Single speed or 2 speed ?

TBH, I don't rate the Penn reels when compared to a Fin-nor. Penn reels always seem just a bit clunky, and most have bearing issues within 12 months of use.

On all my Fin nor reels (mostly 12's, but also 2 x 16's and 2 x 2011) I remove the secondary anti slip pawl and also the brake sleeves. The 2011's are set to 40Lb Max drag (20lb Strike) and the sprag bearing (one way bearing) has never slipped.

 

[Saintly Fish]

7 hours ago, GPSguru said:

Single speed or 2 speed ?

TBH, I don't rate the Penn reels when compared to a Fin-nor. Penn reels always seem just a bit clunky, and most have bearing issues within 12 months of use.

On all my Fin nor reels (mostly 12's, but also 2 x 16's and 2 x 2011) I remove the secondary anti slip pawl and also the brake sleeves. The 2011's are set to 40Lb Max drag (20lb Strike) and the sprag bearing (one way bearing) has never slipped.

 

I've been using penn reels for years in different forms. Apart from the cheapest Squall or the FS surf blaster (which I've never owned but seen) they have been faultless. I've only ever serviced them once and they are as smooth as the day I purchased them. 

[suzook12]

I was contemplating dragging my TLD out as well

[lezz]

It ain't a lever drag but I trialled one of these when Tope fishing last year - found it to be very 'useable' when married with my Daiwa Super Kenzaki (7'6"Fixed Spool rod) - in fact I think I prefer it to my Shimano Charter Special setup - better/finer control of the amount of resistance applied when in free spool - found it really good and easy to set when drifting over smooth ground

 

[Saintly Fish]

51 minutes ago, lezz said:

It ain't a lever drag but I trialled one of these when Tope fishing last year - found it to be very 'useable' when married with my Daiwa Super Kenzaki (7'6"Fixed Spool rod) - in fact I think I prefer it to my Shimano Charter Special setup - better/finer control of the amount of resistance applied when in free spool - found it really good and easy to set when drifting over smooth ground

 

You cannot beat a good fs shimano!!

[Saintly Fish]

43 minutes ago, JonC said:

Did you throw one of those in the river last year, or was that the one you threw in the year before? 

That was a 3500 a couple of years ago. 
Last year was a bait runner multi and a £300 rod. Anyway that was the joy not me! 

[Saintly Fish]

15 minutes ago, JonC said:

Oh. Would have been even more annoying if you snapped your favourite rod . 

Only ever snapped one rod when in Norway. You snapped a fav have yew?

[GPSguru]

4 hours ago, lezz said:

It ain't a lever drag but I trialled one of these when Tope fishing last year - found it to be very 'useable' when married with my Daiwa Super Kenzaki (7'6"Fixed Spool rod) - in fact I think I prefer it to my Shimano Charter Special setup - better/finer control of the amount of resistance applied when in free spool - found it really good and easy to set when drifting over smooth ground

 

That is really a Carp Reel, does it also make the coffee that it grinds ?

[GPSguru]

On 3/21/2023 at 6:25 AM, Saintly Fish said:

I've been using penn reels for years in different forms. Apart from the cheapest Squall or the FS surf blaster (which I've never owned but seen) they have been faultless. I've only ever serviced them once and they are as smooth as the day I purchased them. 

Alan (my mate with the Offshore 25) used to be very much into Penn gear, but when on his boat I have seen a few Penn boat rods snap, and also a few Penn multi's lock up, but I have to agree that most folk highly rate the Penn FS reels.

However, the really old Penn Multi's, like the Senator 6/0, were absolutely bombproof and there are still a good few in use today, and can command a high S/H price.

[Andy135]

13 minutes ago, GPSguru said:

That is really a Carp Reel, does it also make the coffee that it grinds ?

Well, why don't you say what you really think! 🤣

[JDP]

1 hour ago, GPSguru said:

Alan (my mate with the Offshore 25) used to be very much into Penn gear, but when on his boat I have seen a few Penn boat rods snap, and also a few Penn multi's lock up, but I have to agree that most folk highly rate the Penn FS reels.

However, the really old Penn Multi's, like the Senator 6/0, were absolutely bombproof and there are still a good few in use today, and can command a high S/H price.

Those 6/0 senators out of the box new with standard drags only put out a measured 7lb of drag pressure. They really were primitive bulky reels that relied more on line capacity to eventually wear a fish down, broke handles and side plates on mine. Where now a small Talica 12 can put out around 40lb of drag and hold 700m of 50lb braid. I use my lever drag Talica 12 as my offshore heavy game outfit on a very light Daiwa Saltiga rod. 

I can cast with the Shimano Talica but admit its not a decent cast but that's mostly down to the rod its used with.

As for Penn reels generally, well I have a battle 6000 which is used on anything big from the shore and also picked up a slammer mkIV two days ago. The slammer is going back, regretful purchase. Though I like the battle for its price, I won't be making any big moves over to these Chinese made reels.
 

 

[GPSguru]

1 hour ago, JDP said:

Those 6/0 senators out of the box new with standard drags only put out a measured 7lb of drag pressure.

In their day they were good enough, especially for Conger.

I have measured the drag on my Fin - nor MA2011 reels and one gives 42lb and the 46lb, although I won't be using max drag on Blues and Porgies as I like them to be tired before they come to the boat, otherwise they tend to go ballistic when unhooking.

No, I won't touch Penn gear, and TBH I am tending to give Shimano a miss at the moment.

[JDP]

5 hours ago, GPSguru said:

In their day they were good enough, especially for Conger.

I have measured the drag on my Fin - nor MA2011 reels and one gives 42lb and the 46lb, although I won't be using max drag on Blues and Porgies as I like them to be tired before they come to the boat, otherwise they tend to go ballistic when unhooking.

No, I won't touch Penn gear, and TBH I am tending to give Shimano a miss at the moment.

I had a few Fin-nors many years ago but wasn't overly impressed with the smoothness of the drags, how are yours and have you needed to do anything to them.

 

[Malc]

Slight tangent towards FS reels; I am hugely impressed with my shimano exage 4000 and how smooth the drag is. It hasn't let me down as yet and has coped well with pollock heading back to snags. I also have a Finn Nor offshore FS (6500 I think) which has an even stronger drag set up but not used it for anything other than general bottom fishing yet, but will be used for tope soon enough 🫰

[Saintly Fish]

11 hours ago, GPSguru said:

I have to agree that most folk highly rate the Penn FS reels

NO 😱 it's the FS reels that dissolve in sea air. The multis are great, except the cheapest "Squall".