• You need to be a registered member of Barbel Fishing World to post on these forums. Some of the forums are hidden from non-members. Please refer to the instructions on the ‘Register’ page for details of how to join the new incarnation of BFW...

Reel thoughts

J

James Hinley

Senior Member
This may have been asked many a time....

I've purchased a couple of barbel rods in this close season, and need a couple of new reels (naturally). I've been using a shimano exage 4000 RC, cracking reel, for my bass fishing. It has the fighting drag mechanism. When this is set to minimum, as well as the drag, it's pretty much working as a freespool mechanism. My thoughts are, that if i were to use it for barbel fishing, the fish takes and you lift the rod, a quick flick of the fighting drag mechanism increases the drag to a playable level. Can this be used in lieu of a baitrunner?

What are people's thoughts of baitrunner v non-baitrunner?

Cheers
 
yes you can do that , i did myself in the past .

thing is though it sort of devalues the fighting drag option as you need to set the middle point differently

fighting drags are fine if you fish a single rod , if you regularly use 2 rods , baitrunners are the safer and better option in my book
 
Thanks Stuart, it was just a thought as i was playing around with the reel earlier today. I am on the look out for a couple of baitrunners, (just in case anyone is on the look out for selling ;)).
 
Many say that they do use Shimano Fightin' Drag in lieu of a baitrunner and are quite happy to do so. I have few Shimano reels with the feature but don't use them as baitrunner substitutes. I've found that if the drag is turned down enough to act as a freespool, there's not enough upward adjustment in the Fightin' Drag to get the reel to a reasonable fish playing setting. That necessitates further upward adjustment of the rear drag, not something I want to be messing about with during a fight. I like the Fightin' Drag feature but, unless I've messed up my initial drag setting, I'll only use it to drop the drag setting when a fish gets close to the landing net.

For my barbel fishing, it's baitrunners for ledgering, Fighting Drag reels for float fishing.
 
Chris, thats what i would assume happens, however i've found with the exage, flicking the fighting drag to max when the drag is set to minimum puts it to a quite playable level of drag. Surprising really.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top