Newbie mooching gear questions

I clip my Islanders with a down rigger clip tied to the base of the downrigger. and clipped to the line just before the first eyelet on the rod. The drag is then set perfect to fight a fish but the clip keeps the line in place negating any creep. When a fish hits? pull off the clip and away you go. Mature Augustlike fish pull the clip usually themselves when they hit. This system works fine for me and allows my guests to fight fish without having to ever adjust the drag.
 
highbank said:
I finally got out this weekend to try out this gear. At first I had a bit of trouble with the MR2-AR when dropping the downrigger. I usually just hold the rod in my hand when lowering my levelwinds, but that definitely didn't work with the Islander! Once I just put it in the rod holder, loosened the drag and let it down it worked great.

Landed a nice 13lb blackmouth (which is pretty large for my area of Puget Sound) on the setup and it was super fun! The drag is nice and smooth. I can see how it would be nice to be able gain line even with the drag very loose without the anti-reverse feature, I found myself adjusting the drag quite a bit.

I ended up having to keep the drag almost completely tightened to stop it from slowly feeding out more line while in the downrigger. I was only fishing about 115ft deep. Is that normal for these reels?
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I have very similar experience with my mr2 AR. Adjustments while the fish is on. The knob could be slightly bigger. You can't torque the rod over unless you have max tension. I think its good for the kids. My son started using his at 8 years old. He's not going to get hurt but I'd never choose to use it unless he was there. I use the normal mr2 and it's awesome.
 
Brett83 said:
I have very similar experience with my mr2 AR. Adjustments while the fish is on. The knob could be slightly bigger. You can't torque the rod over unless you have max tension. I think its good for the kids. My son started using his at 8 years old. He's not going to get hurt but I'd never choose to use it unless he was there. I use the normal mr2 and it's awesome.
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I was out again today and got another fish on the MR2 AR. I think I’m deciding that I don’t love the anti-reverse. I end up adjusting the drag a lot. Maybe I just don’t know how to get it dialed in, but wouldn’t be an issue without the anti-reverse. I’m going to try the Shimano 4000 when I go out this weekend, hopefully can get a fish on that one and compare.
 
Charleygirl said:
I clip my Islanders with a down rigger clip tied to the base of the downrigger. and clipped to the line just before the first eyelet on the rod. The drag is then set perfect to fight a fish but the clip keeps the line in place negating any creep. When a fish hits? pull off the clip and away you go. Mature Augustlike fish pull the clip usually themselves when they hit. This system works fine for me and allows my guests to fight fish without having to ever adjust the drag.
Click to expand...
Good to know these reels just behave that way and nothing is wrong with this one.

That second clip make sense and seems like it would work. I fish a lot by myself and the area I fish most allows 2 rods per person. So, the thought of having yet another thing to deal with while running two downriggers on my own doesn’t sound great though. I think I can deal with just keeping the drag really tight while in the downrigger and backing it off right away when a fish hits.
 
highbank said:
Good to know these reels just behave that way and nothing is wrong with this one.

That second clip make sense and seems like it would work. I fish a lot by myself and the area I fish most allows 2 rods per person. So, the thought of having yet another thing to deal with while running two downriggers on my own doesn’t sound great though. I think I can deal with just keeping the drag really tight while in the downrigger and backing it off right away when a fish hits.
Click to expand...
I pin the drag. I'm not shooting a YouTube series trying to get footage of a reel peeling. The fish set the hook themselves. It takes no thought and less than zero effort to back a drag knob off. Unless you had one hand or no fingers or were actually in a dream where no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't get your fingers to work.
 
Rain City said:
I pin the drag. I'm not shooting a YouTube series trying to get footage of a reel peeling. The fish set the hook themselves. It takes no thought and less than zero effort to back a drag knob off. Unless you had one hand or no fingers or were actually in a dream where no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't get your fingers to work.
Click to expand...
For sure, it's not at all difficult. Although, I find the drag knob on the mr2 ar very small for my hands.
 
Rain City said:
I pin the drag. I'm not shooting a YouTube series trying to get footage of a reel peeling. The fish set the hook themselves. It takes no thought and less than zero effort to back a drag knob off. Unless you had one hand or no fingers or were actually in a dream where no matter how hard you tried you just couldn't get your fingers to work.
Click to expand...
Your either fishing super deep or don’t get a lot of big fish lol
 
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