I talked to a guy that guided at Midway Island (in the middle of the Pacific) he holds a couple of IFGA world records. He said for certain lines and certain conditions, they always set their drag using a scale, but this was with nice "lever drag" Penn reels and like 50lb or 80lb line, so I'm not the practice would carry over.

With a lever drag reel, the idea is, if you need to increase the drag, you move the lever forward, but if you need to return to your normal drag setting, you can return the lever to its original position (there's a "click" spot) and your drag should be the same. I've never noticed if there's a "lever drag" steelhead-sized reel.

-N.