Having mentioned the importance of properly fighting fish caught on light fly tackle in the previous post, I find it pertinent to elaborate a little bit on that. Though there's plenty of discussion about fish fighting tactics, I still see many errors. To be clear, this is more about landing the fish safely than getting more fish in the net, but the too are not at all exclusive- if you land fish more quickly, you'll land more fish.
So let's break it down.
Go Heavy
Always use the heaviest tippet you can get away with for the situation unless you are going for a specific line class world record. The heavier your tippet the more pressure you can put on it, the more pressure you can put on it the faster you can land fish. I use 30 and 40 pound tippet for my large striped bass fishing most of the time now, and I can whip even a very large fish very quickly on a 10 or 12 wt and 30lb tippet. Furthermore, know the amount of pressure you can put on your tippet. Hint: It's more than you think. Take our rods outside, put hooks in immovable objects, and see how much pressure you can put on your tippet before it breaks. Hint: its probably more than you think. Do understand that with really huge, far running fish like tuna, billfish, and sharks; and with salmon on lighter tippets, line drag will change how much pressure you can put on a fish. But for the most part if you are using the right tippet for the job you can pull really hard.
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| Ian Devlin quickly wrestles a striped bass into the boat. |
The Bends
Practice lifting weight with your fly rod. Either setup a little pulley system or drape your leader over a smooth dowel, with the leader tied off to a ten pound weight. You will find that a high rod does not allow for much pulling power at all, whereas a low rod put all that force where it matter: in the rod butt. Don't fight nice fish from the tip of your rod, that is for casting. This changes relative to the direction the fish is going. What that means is, when a false albacore or bluefin tuna sounds and you need to pull it up from deep water, holding the rod perpendicular to the water is roughly equivalent to holding the rod straight up in the air were the fish close to the surface. Point your rod down, put the top half in the water even, and you'll gain more ground.
The Angles
The rod angle must also be changed when the fish changes direction. Pull against the fish, not with it. If the fish goes left, pull right and vice versa. There are some occasions when helping the fish get where it is going anyway is fine, as when a fish is heading away from a snag, or going up current in a river, but in general pulling the fish in the direction it wants to go prolongs the fight.
As I just lightly alluded to, in a river a fish down stream from you is a fish with advantage. In this case don't change the angle of the rod, change where you're standing. Make sure you are downstream from a fish as often as possible.
Drag
I routinely find that fly anglers set their drag much too light. There are situations that warrant light drag, but they are fewer than the situations that warrant much, much more drag than I see many anglers use. As you test what it takes to break tippets and how you can lift heavy weight with the fly rod, test how much drag it takes to break off as well. Be sure that it is the tippet that will fail though, not the rod.
Don't Dilly Dally
We all enjoy fighting fish! It's so much of the fun of fly fishing. But don't fight a fish beyond its own strength. Don't let fish get so tired they're about to go belly up, land it with energy to spare. It's the ethical thing to do with any fish you plan to release. Don't let a fish run any farther, dive any deeper, or battle any longer than you can possibly land it. That's just not necessary.
Hopefully some of this information will be useful to you! Successful catch and release hinges on properly fighting fish. Enjoy, tight lines, and respect the fish!
Until next time,
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