Setting the drag.. 12.2 pound trout

[trout-hunter]

Hey everyone,
Been a while since I've been fishing (almost 2 years) so I decided to go for a sneaky fish up to the Goulburn, i brought a new rod and reel at the beginning of covid last year and within a few weeks we got placed in lockdown so fishing had to wait for a while, at the moment working up near Eildon so decided to bring a rod with me so i could go flick some lures with a work mate.
My set up for trout is a 7ft shimano ultra lite spin rod with a ultegra 1000 spin reel that has 4lb mono with a 8lb leader.
While I was casting a 4inch banana prawn plastic I hooked onto a log and had to tighten my drag to be able to recover my plastic and jigged, once I got it back I replaced the jigged incase I damaged my line or jighead but forgot to loosen the drag.. 3 casts later I hooked onto this monster 12.2 pound rainbow and instantly remembered my drag wasn't set! In the video I'll upload you will hear me say (it's a thumper ahh ****) and start trying to set the drag while trying to tire out this beast..
Suppose I'm just wondering what would be a good tension to set the drag to so next time I'm only focusing on the fish and not the drag tension.. it's the biggest trout I've caught so I wasn't expecting to land it especially for a 12.2 pound trout on 4 pound line when my drag seemed to be a bit tight..
Was also my first time using the go pro aswell.. the whole thing was pure ass I reckon..
Cheers everyone and stay safe!

!

[trout-hunter]

https://youtu.be/ckRmiPptq9I

[Sebb]

Nice fish good footage, you got the hookup footage.
Ultegra 1000 has a 3kg max drag I believe, I would put about half drag.
When I try to retrieve a lure from a snag, I put my hand and hold the spool, rather than tighten the drag to full. That way I don't change the drag setting.

[trout-hunter]

Nice fish good footage, you got the hookup footage.
Ultegra 1000 has a 3kg max drag I believe, I would put about half drag.
When I try to retrieve a lure from a snag, I put my hand and hold the spool, rather than tighten the drag to full. That way I don't change the drag setting.

Good idea, I've never really thought much about the drag on my trout rods, I mainly fish smaller rivers so the average weight fish is no more than 500g to 1kg. Suppose I better look into a bit now that these big stonkers are put into the Goulburn.

[Sebb]

Nice fish good footage, you got the hookup footage.
Ultegra 1000 has a 3kg max drag I believe, I would put about half drag.
When I try to retrieve a lure from a snag, I put my hand and hold the spool, rather than tighten the drag to full. That way I don't change the drag setting.

Good idea, I've never really thought much about the drag on my trout rods, I mainly fish smaller rivers so the average weight fish is no more than 500g to 1kg. Suppose I better look into a bit now that these big stonkers are put into the Goulburn.

Yeah you got lucky to be able to go to those stocked places. I can't remember the last time I went trout fishing.
For streams etc with smaller trout, 0.5kg drag is enough, especially if you're using a fast stiff rod.

[smokin_reels]

Nice fish good footage, you got the hookup footage.
Ultegra 1000 has a 3kg max drag I believe, I would put about half drag.
When I try to retrieve a lure from a snag, I put my hand and hold the spool, rather than tighten the drag to full. That way I don't change the drag setting.

Good idea, I've never really thought much about the drag on my trout rods, I mainly fish smaller rivers so the average weight fish is no more than 500g to 1kg. Suppose I better look into a bit now that these big stonkers are put into the Goulburn.

Yeah you got lucky to be able to go to those stocked places. I can't remember the last time I went trout fishing.
For streams etc with smaller trout, 0.5kg drag is enough, especially if you're using a fast stiff rod.

Seb, what is a fast stiff rod?

[Sebb]

Seb, what is a fast stiff rod?

A fast action rod (feels stiff). The blank bounce back to straight position very quickly (putting resistance and tension). Most rods in Aus are fast action rod. Some are faster than the others.

Daiwa Infeet Blue is a regular action rod.