Can you beef up the drag on a penn 309 with maybe some heavy duty drag washers or more washers? If so will increasing your drag put too much strain on the gears. Im wanting to beef the reel up a bit for big game fish. If I had the money id just get a couple penn senators 9/0 but thats not an option now. any info would be appreciated

Tight lines to all.

Just check out the internet for a set of HT 100 drag washers.

Also use an actual drag grease, i.e., Cals' or Shimano. There is a difference in greases, a big part of which is more even heat dispersal. Will have a big influence on your drag performance.

Or a set of "Smoothies". both the carbon fiber and flat ground metal washers. On smoothies leave grease alone, do not use it. They have already been treated with a dry lubricaqnt.

thankyou northchannel

Coastal Tackle Service on here is a smooth drag dealer. He would def be the one to talk to about improving your drag system.

Well, First off, I would not recommend the Smoothies.

The 309 has the same drag stack that Penn has been using for years. If your problem with Drag is that it will not hold it could be three things. One is your line is slipping, the drag disc are wore out or the Stack itself is not installed properly and the Drag Spring washer has been over tightened to where it is flat. Penn has been using Carbon Fiber I know for at least 40 years on their reels. Instead of Smoothies I would switch to Carbontex from Smooth Drag and make sure to use Cal's 2 Speed Drag grease on the Drags. If your Drag Spring Washers are flat then replace them or it will make no difference what you use.

That is a 30 pound test class reel and if you are looking for more than that then it is the wrong reel for you.


Post back the particular problem you are having and what type of fishing you are doing and I will see if I can offer you some suggestions.

I dont have a problem with the reel. my concern is being able to turn a shark and tire it out before it spools my reel. I was really just hoping there was something I could do to give me a couple more pounds of drag.

Hey coastal tackle service ( sorry dont know your name ), i was on your site, do you have the bigger tub of cals drag grease available instead of the 1oz? I could buy it from another site but your site would be a better deal/bargain with the free shipping with an order over 25 bucks for some grease and a bottle of the lighting bearing lube. Ive started to clean all my reel myself now and have been looking for the best recommended greases and bearing lubes to use and what ive cpme up with it cals drag grease for drags and even for in the inside parts of the reel and lighting bearing lube. I fish only saltwater alot, do you recommmend using cals drag grease for everything inside the reel? or just for the drags and some inside parts?
Thanks

Sorry but I stock the grease to sell only in the 1 Ounce. I buy it in bulk for my own use.

As far as grease in the reels I use Cal's on the Gears only and Superlube everywhere else. A 1 ounce container will go a long way for your personal use.

Back to the Drag issue for No Name.

If you are catching big Shark and are getting spooled then you need to look at your drag stack and check the washers to see of they are bent correctly and not flat. and if you are holding pressure. If you are then you need a bigger reel. A 6/0 would be my recommendation. If you are not holding drag pressure then you need to consider changing the drags to the carbontex. Your washers may be wore out and since you are saying your drag is not holding the fish then I am guessing they are, then the carbontex would be a start to get a few more pounds out of them. You should be able to completely stop that fish for a while with that reel by clamping down on the drag.

I have a used one in the shop that is locked up and when I get time I am going to tear into it and see if it is any good. If so I will hook you up.

Below is a drawing of a typical Penn Drag Stack:

Thanks for the feed back. My 309 is brand new, never had a fish on it yet. planning to get a fish with it this spring just tryin to cover my bases. Also havnt been fishing in a minute so I was hoping id have a reason to buy some new stuff and open up my reels. but if the drag system thats already on it is pretty good I have no reason to sup it up. If theres anything I can do to improve the reel please post.

Not much to improve it other than putting 4 or 5 of them in a sack and making a drag anchor out of them.

I am not much on Penn anymore since they were bought by Pure Fishing. The quality of the components are not the same and the spinning reels blow bad.

what would you suggest as a good quality conventional reel besides penn. I guess my budget for such a reel would be 300 bucks. and are the penn senators ok still, or has their quality suffered as well?

No need to spend that. Take a look at a Shimano Tekota.




You can get one of these for around $169.00 and it has Dartanium drags and will get you about 18# Drag Pressure in the 500 size. You can get up to 24# on this reel by going up in size. The new Senators are listed at 19-30 pounds but I don't think this is realistic. You can also change the Dartanium over to Carbontex which will add to your drag pressure.

Don't let it fool you, I have guys using these reels for Tuna and Grouper. Consequently a lot of sharks are caught. The drags on these reels are smooth and have an excellent adjustment range.

How are those Tekotas on casting distance paired with a 10ft. surf rod?

thanks for the help guys. I went ahead and ordered two of the penn 115L 9/0 reels. Im going to piggy back a question here. What rods would you pair up with the penn 9/0 senator? i was looking at the 9/0 penn senator rods to pair up seeing as though the rod and reel share names. My budget for a rod is $100 and I have to have aluminum reel seats. the penn senator rod is 6 foot 6 inch and I wont be casting with it, just kayaking my baits out.

Well, I cannot tell you about Surf Fishing as I don't do it and there is not much of it done around here. But I will tell you they are designed to cast with the level wind at distance. Some of the guys use the 300 sizes for Live lining for Redfish and they really like them.

Size for size they will outcast most others in it's class but is relatively inexpensive and has a lot of features others don't.

They are extremely smooth reels and will work more like an International than a Senator.