Okuma sierra 5/6 question.

[Janus]

I have one and haven't fished yet. The drag seems to be all , almost all, or nothing on mine. I'm not complaining just wondering if this is how they are. Not a lot of precise fine tuning on the drag?
Janus

[Flyandtie1]

Yep, I have the exact same model and it is the same way. Not very fine tuneable and it easily slips out of adjustment with one bump of the finger.


On a side note, If the super loud click bugs you, (It bugged me, You can here it half way across the lake with a fish on) so take off the spool, and you will see a little triangle with a screw in the middle. Take out that screw and remove the triangle. Now put the screw back in. Now it is a totally silent reel.

Hope it helps. (If you need better explanation I can get the reel and do a step by step to take off the click if you want)

[PanFisher]

I have the same thing on one of my three Sierras. The other two are fine. I suspect there might be a way to fix it but haven't taken the time to study it yet.

When it becomes important (or annoying enough) I'll likely do dome research.

[rizeye]

mine works great. email okuma and ask them. i bet they replace it.

[Clay]

I have one in the box that I haven't used. They get good review for that price point and they were much cheaper than buying a spare spool for my other reel so it is a back up reel.

Some manufacturer's have a way of adjusting the range of the drag. You can adjust it internally and then the external drag nob adjusts the drag within that range. I hope that I made sense. I'm not sure if this reel has that option though. I agree, call Okuma, BUT let us know what you found out.

Rick

[Big Bad Wulff]

Basically I set the drag at nearly nothing and use my hands as the drag. IMHO a drag is useless on a fly reel for small fish.

[CaseyP]

IMHO a drag is useless on a fly reel for small fish. Big Bad Wulff

i need the drag to keep the line from snarling when i pull out extra when casting. i kind of yank and that makes it sort of spin back and that makes a mess, no doubt about it!
thanks for the tip about making it quieter--nearly drove my sainted aunt crazy in the boat last year!

[Clay]

Basically I set the drag at nearly nothing and use my hands as the drag. IMHO a drag is useless on a fly reel for small fish.

Agreed, on small fish, but we all don't chase small fish. If you like to catch brook trout that is fine. But try a powerful fish on a fly rod and the drag becomes important. I was hooked on carp fishing with a fly rod as soon as I caught my first one. I love trout but I can't always be where the trout are. Besides I let most of them go anyhow, so if you are a catch and release guy, what would you rather catch a 6" brookie or a 30" plus carp that WILL take you into your backing. You're letting them both go anyhow. The bronze bonefish is available within a few minutes of most of us. They are spectacular on a fly rod.

Landed a 30" plus fish on a 3wt with 6X tippet last year. That's about as close to saltwater big game fish as I am going to get. For this work, you want a drag that works. There are many good reels like Lamson, Ross, Bauer, Tibor, Galvan and many more but the above fish was a 52 min battle and the little Pflueger Trion 1934 did the job very well and for about $70 it was a steal. It's late and I am getting off of topic some.

Rick

[Scooter]

Janus, I have two of those reels and no issues at all with the drag. I would guess that you may have a defective reel, or perhaps one that can be adjusted, but I have no idea how. I have adjusted the disc drag on a similar reel. The problem I had there was similar to what you described, the drag was increasing, but wasn't tight enough. What I did was turned the external control knob to it's furthest (maximum drag) setting, removed the control knob, turned it back a halfway or so then replaced it. It gave me the results I was looking for. If that's possible with the Sierra (I don't have mine in front of me at this time) I'd suggest making match marks with masking tape or something so you can see how far you turned it and can return it to it's original setting if you had to.
Also, I'm a little puzzled about the "super loud click" comment. Those reels are a silent retrieve, and a soft click (mine are anyway) on outgoing. Turning or removing the pawl would get rid of the click, but it also may make the spool spin even looser than it already does.
Tom.

[WarrenP]

"Also, I'm a little puzzled about the "super loud click" comment."

Scooter,

I was puzzled with that comment too. I own the same reels and you can barely hear the click on mine. Oh, well, to each their own....