Flathead time is coming up. My question is when fishing near logs and tons of brush with live perch. Does anyone set drag in these tight places. Lets say you got monster flattie on the other end, you dont want to snap your line, and u also dont want him peeling drag under some nasty logs or what not. What do u guys perfer.

most reel has a max drag, lets say you're using reel that has 35lb max drag, 30lb test line, and you have 50lb flattie on the line,... Here I would set drag to about 70-80% and use your pole both to wear him out and to horse him out of the log. If you keep line pretty tight all the time, fish tend to swim in a straight line and hence doesn't have time to wrap itself around structures... so yeah, I would set drag pretty tight relative to my line strength,...

No conventional freshwater reels can put anywhere near 35lbs max drag for whatever it's worth. Most of the higher end typical freshwater setups can put 20-25lbs max. Your strategy is right though, keep tension on the fish and it generally keeps them from getting hung up even if they aren't going the way you want them to swim at first.

If you're Flattie fishing I'd use heavy duty braided line like 80lb Power Pro and lock the drag down to get them away from the cover in the first place. With a heavy action 7'6" cat rod and the 80lb on my Abu Garcia 6500UC there are few fish that can't be muscled out away from a snag and onto the shore/into the boat.

Don't know about conventional reels, but I have a BPS Catmaxx CM70 spinning reel came with a max drag of 37.4 lb, the CM80 model has 39.6 lb max drag. Coincidentally, I also have two low end saltwater spinning reels, Shimano Socorro 8000F (max drag 20lb), Daiwa DF100A Giant spinning reel (max drag 33lb) Agree with the rest of your statements, though.

Btw, all my catfish reels are spooled with 50lb PowerPro Super Slick braided line.

My bad I should have been more specific. Bait casters** not spinning tackle.