PE Rating of Rods

[Mark Harris]

That's not fishing Brandon, it's winding a winch  .

[Warwick Joyce]

Q? Wouldn't the PE rating of a rod relate to the max line diameter to use for optimal casting performance?

If a rods drag rating was 15kg @ 45 deg. Why wouldn't we use 30/40lb line because surely that would be sufficient for the rods capabilities?

We know that the line strength we use is far above the actual drag capabilities of the reels/rods and the reason for that is shock load strength and to be able to skull drag fish out while palming the spool.

The way I see it is that the PE rating of a rod tells me I can cast line and leader effectively up to that PE rating. Not how strong the rod is at fighting fish.

Clear as mud

[Tak Otsuka]

Hi Warwick,

I believe PE rating on GT rods is more to do with strength.

Personally I often encounter the situation when I need to increase drag to heavier then lower the rod angle. Line rating 30/40lb is nothing to do with angle and I'll break my line on the setting you mentioned.

Cheers,
Tak

Q? Wouldn't the PE rating of a rod relate to the max line diameter to use for optimal casting performance?

If a rods drag rating was 15kg @ 45 deg. Why wouldn't we use 30/40lb line because surely that would be sufficient for the rods capabilities?

We know that the line strength we use is far above the actual drag capabilities of the reels/rods and the reason for that is shock load strength and to be able to skull drag fish out while palming the spool.

The way I see it is that the PE rating of a rod tells me I can cast line and leader effectively up to that PE rating. Not how strong the rod is at fighting fish.

Clear as mud

[Warwick Joyce]

You said it yourself, if you run a higher drag you need to lower your rod angle because your rod won't handle it. A rod with a pe 10 rating (130lb) doesn't mean you can run 130lb of drag across the rod. Maybe if you point the rod straight at the fish but then you are effectively taking the rod out of the equation.

[Jay Burgess]

You said it yourself, if you run a higher drag you need to lower your rod angle because your rod won't handle it. A rod with a pe 10 rating (130lb) doesn't mean you can run 130lb of drag across the rod. Maybe if you point the rod straight at the fish but then you are effectively taking the rod out of the equation.

I think it's assumed that we generally use around 1/4 - 1/3rd of the breaking strain of the line. For 130lb this is around 32lbs drag pressure... which to me seems like a pretty standard amount of drag for a PE10 rod.

[braddrew]

Thanks guys - some good answers here

Warrick - you've hit the nail on the head, that's exactly what I was asking (about why you don't use PE10 if you can't handle the drag)

Apologies if I'm drifting off topic a little here, but can I ask, has anyone ever caught a fish on PE10 that they think they couldn't have landed on 120lb PE8, and if so, why not?


Brad

[Nathan Tsao]

Hi Brad,
     On my last trip out on Oahu i tried to see just how far you could push PE8 line. There were two occasions when its limits were met; mostly because i didnt bring my heavy gear!
    The first fish that broke the mainline struck the plug about 10m away from the boat and looked to be about 30kilos or so. The fish took out about 8-10m of line and i decided to clamp the spool with my left hand to see if it was possible to stop the fish with PE8. The fish stopped, but the line quickly broke right after the fish stopped. We were fishing in about 75ft of water, so the fish was nowhere near the bottom. The line appeared to have broken a meter or two above my knot (color coded line). I am confident that the line wouldn't have broken with PE10.
    The second fish was a pretty similar situation. Deep water and it it was the end of the day. A good fish struck, and i really didnt want to crank in too much line, so i clamped the spool and tried to dead stop it near the boat. Again the line busted well before the fish reached the bottom.
    On a previous trip i hooked a good fish in shallower water. We were hammering on it with the boat moving at a pretty quick speed to get the fish out of the reef. Under such high strain of the boat, the line busted with the reel clamped down near lock.
     All three times was clamping the spool with a Van Staal275 and PE8 line tied to 200lb leader with an FG knot. The other times i have used heavier line PE10-PE12, i have never had an issue with line snapping.
     That being said; i am also fully confident that i would've landed those fish on PE8 with a little more patience. If you go looking to break something, you're probably gonna break it, haha! Sometimes you just gotta test things to their limits to know how to distribute your confidence.

[Tak Otsuka]

Sorry although I wrote PE rating is for strength I didn't mean angler can fish at the breaking strain of line class. All I wanted to say was this represents power of the rod rather than casting performance (guides are set to perform best for the line class of course).

Brad - your main line may have certain breaking strain written on spool but you will also need to think about how you connect it to lure. As Jay mentioned, many people generally use up to 30-35% of breaking strain of the line as we tend to loose some on each connection within entire line system, main to leader connection, connection to rings to lures as such, as well as for shock load purpose. So although it is not 100% to breaking strain of the main line, you can still apply heavier drag to line system using PE10 compare to PE8. Drag rating and line rating on most rods are come from this and hope this make sense to you.

Nathan - thank you for summarising. I think it is sort of situation we encounter.

Cheers,
Tak

[braddrew]

Thanks guys, clears it up completely... great examples Nathan, pity you lost the fish though

Brad