Utility
Line & hook calculator
Drag is the setting most anglers guess at. These figures come from the standard practice of setting drag to roughly a quarter to a third of your line's real, knotted strength.
Inputs
Your line
A well-tied, wetted knot in good line typically retains most of its rated strength; a rushed or dry-tightened knot retains much less. Lower the percentage if you are unsure of your knot.
Results
What that means
- Line strength in metric
- 5.4 kg
- Effective strength at the knot
- 10.8 lb
- Suggested drag setting
- 2.7–3.6 lb of pull
- Typical leader strength
- around 18 lb
- Shock leader for heavy casting
- around 36 lb
How to actually set it
Clip a spring scale to your line, or have someone pull line off the reel by hand with the rod bent as it would be when fighting a fish. Adjust until line slips at the figure above. Drag set by feel alone is usually far too tight.
Guide
Hook size for the bait
| Bait | Typical hook size | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Single maggot or pinkie | 18–20 | Fine wire so the bait stays lively |
| Double maggot or caster | 16–14 | Standard match sizes |
| Sweetcorn or small pellet | 14–12 | Point must stay clear of the bait |
| Worm (whole lobworm) | 8–4 | Long shank helps present the worm |
| 15–20 mm boilie | 8–4 | Wide gape, mounted on a hair |
| Small deadbait | 4–2/0 | Often two trebles on a wire trace |
| 4 in soft plastic | 2/0–3/0 | Offset worm hook, rigged weedless |
| 6–8 in soft plastic | 4/0–5/0 | Heavier wire for bigger fish |
The rule behind the table: the hook point must never be masked by the bait. If the bait covers the gape, go up a size or mount the bait on a hair.