F4A,

A disc drag on a freshwater fly reel is totally unnecessary. However, they do come in handy if you're targeting chinook. Every one of my fly reels is a basic spring and pawl check - not really a drag - except for a couple I bought for potential salt water fishing. I even used a spring and pawl Hardy St. Aiden for bonefishing, and it's plenty. However permit and tarpon pull so hard and unbelievably fast that the disc drag saves a lot of finger skin that would otherwise be lost. Chinook aren't that fast, but because they can pull so hard for so long, that I used a disc drag reel when I targeted chinook on the Kanecktok.

Sg