I am sure though that the drag on the record YFT was abouts the same you need to land a decent tail from the side?! My drag is poked on my reel, just been locking em this season down on with a golf grip, on the grip LOL! Need some carbontex!
Landing YFT needs line capacity, smooth drag, patience, technique and a good back, tail are other animals.. I pull harder on a big tail than I do on a 100kg tuna! If I fight a big tuna on the drag I use on a tail, he'll pull me into the deep blue sea. My bud hooked a gas bottle yellowfin about 3 weeks back on the boat in 30m of water on what can only be described as a 10lb grunter rig, little shimmy grinder, sedona or something.. Mate fought that fish for 30 mins, almost got spooled once or twice and eventually it was circling under the boat and the hooks pulled..he was gutted but that is fishing. and braid..Check the competition LTB fishing for tuna in the cape on 4kg mono!! Takes em like a whole day but they can land a 200lb yellowfin on 4kg.
Composite rod casts nicer for spinning multiplier style, the tip is softer and the cast smoother. It has more of a parabolic action pulling the fish and takes knocks and gnashes on rocks in the enviroment you fish for them much better, when you hook a proper fish the tip doesn't snap off. I prefer HMG rods for everything else though LOL..But was told to get a "carbon" rod by the pros as opposed to a graphite rod but was misuse of terms, they were referring to the bluemarlin 10ft 2-4oz "pro carbon" T24 blank which is not available anymore, the mandril damaged/skew, my rod builder suggested a 50/50 composite blue marlin SS made up from parts of the grinder blank (which is 50/50) and he was spot on the money. That rod casts amazing, and pulls and is very light.
My chom landed a 10kg plus tail this year on the lightest 10-20lb braid leerie rig, but it was a fluke and luck and also experience and skill and he thought he had a leerie on the way the fish was fighting and it stayed on top luckily, bottom was cold, he put his rod in a holder in the rock to throw at some tail while it was on the line and picked the rod up to fight it later while the fish was skulking in a rock pool up the drag..turned out to be a very nice tail?! But that is him, the tail and him go back till before he was born. Like a 3rd generation tail nutter.
I got cleaned up few weeks back, proper by a small 6kg class fish that I thought was a katonkel as it swam twards me headshaking, until it was close, on my 20lb grinder rig..It woke up and cut me off on a reef 200m out.. locking down a fish on a grinder is unwieldy while you are fighting and it running, when you do, pop! You need the stretch. On my proper rig that little fish would pronto be in the freezer in a vacuum bag! I got one of 15kg last year, took me less than 10metres out, fight was pretty intense and over quickly..If I had no bungee that fish would have cleaned me up. If I had no gaffman it would have been way more in the fishes favour and it was still touch and go for moments in the fight.
When I was chasing them on a sustain 10000 and eventually up to 65-80lb braid, I think I got over the thrill of hooking the big boys on braid right around after loosing fish #13 or #14 in a row or something ridiculous..It gets tired quick. I was like 3 seasons in and it was getting expensive!! The petrol (and road tax!) I spent on that getting that first big boy out on braid. It's was, but it's not worth it.
That's abouts when grootvis, here on sealine, kindly gave me his old weathered saltist 40 (that is still catching fish after fish BTW) to learn to cast and I bought an exage 11ft casting (which I still use for cliffside cracker hunting). I could barely throw 30 meters but persevered, here I am a few years later and I can't believe I fished so uncomfortably for so long before and lost so many fish before I stopped being stubborn and listened to the experienced guys/gals landing fish.
It is much more thrilling landing them and the old timers might make a space for you on the rock. Also have you considered how the braid stuffs it up for the guys on their game..You cut off the guys on mono if there are multiple hook-ups. I was sworn @ a few and I still did not land my fish. LOL. You cast less accurately on grinder and bomb shoals more, the line is highly visible and I was a sceptic but now over the years I have had TOO many fish of all sorts intently trying their hardest to EAT my leader knot right before my eyes so I use high vis braid on the light rig no more. The braid guys will loose most of their fish when they do come past and this will send the shoal scooting away following the lost fish who are in panic mode to get away, this takes the shoal away. If you watch the pros like wayne stanley and their crew working together with no kooks in the way and a keen shoal, they will work together to hook and land fish, keeping the shoal there and occupied and keen and landing multiple fish, each, from it. You can't do that with one braid guy in the mix even. Even when a shoal is full of S#%@ my bro will take the first cast with a little plug over them and rile them up, form a stripe and bring em closer, then I can get a cast in behind him, behind them and bring my plug through the middle of them now that they are a bit pissed off, and get smashed, and keep the shoal with the hooked fish as I let it bungee around, and let him hook up, land mine, let my mate keep the shoal following his fish, throw hook up, and let him land his and get another shot again. Now try doing that with braid.
Braid is keeping you from being invited to the bigger leagues my bud..

It has its place but it is not in this game. I started spinning from the boat with my multiplier this year, the skipper is like "WTF you can cast now?!" As in my casts are landing where I want them to, the grinder would fly everywhere where I did not want to and I was famous for bombing shoals, casting 2 oclock when fish are at 9 o clock..First trip I took the grandwave to sea, I was like, why didn't I do this yonks ago, so much better..shame my battle along penn battle that has died and been revived too many times may to my complete surprise be retired, alive after all these years and being on the whole journey with me! Accuracy of grinder is way less than multiplier.
The old timers advice to me, and it was around this time of year when the tail were moving off and I had just learned to use my real reel but was a complete hack still, was to pack away my grinder till next summer and force myself to bait fish the whole winter on the saltist 40 and exage and get used to it and next season start fishing it. Was one of the best things I have done in fishing, never looked back. Hardly fished a grinder for bait since and hardly spun bar a leerie or shad or bass with a grinder in the years since then.