On playing big fish

This is a very interesting article.

Although I have never been an advocate of fine tackle for catching big fish, there are times make no mistake when you hook a big one on very fine tackle and somehow you must try and land it.

Mark mentions **** Walkers advice about keeping low and out of sight whilst playing the fish, and how true this is. What makes a fish alarmed when hooked is when they see an angler on the bank. I am convinced of this. Barbel particularly often go like hell when you finally get them on the surface under your rod tip and they see you!

I have landed on occasions very big trout by keeping out of sight and coaxing them into the net.

And when in the meshes they have gone beserk.

In clear snagfree water it is often fairly easy to land a big fish if you take your time. The problem can be great if you hook a very big fish on light tackle in a fast river. Sure you can follow the fish downstream but there come a time when you must hold the fish against the current. This generally results in a broken hooklength.

If there is anything I cannot stand are those anglers who hook big fish on strong tackle and don't make them fight for every inch of line that they take. They stand there with the minimum amount of bend in the rod.

I once saw an angler take 25 minutes over a carp in open water using 15 lb line and a 2 lb TC rods.

That fish should have taken no more than 5 minutes if the angler really knew how to use the rod.

As Frank Guttfield used to say: I don't believe in giving fish swimming lessons.

As john Wilson quoted "If we hook something in here thats a bit of a problem we shall just enjoy".The fight is the most enjoyable part of fishing in my opinion.I dont agree with completely wearing the fish out but its alot of fun playing fish on light tackle.I remember a few weeks ago,i hooked a trout on a 5/6 rod with a 4 lb leader and the hook came out of its mouth and ended up in its dorsal.I had it on for at least five minutes and it was magic.

?... ron.. do you suggest it's better to buy a high test curve rod and just wind em in then?... surely not?...

Carp fishing for fish around the 10lb mark is great on a lighter rod!... thats where the sport is, surely the skill is to play the fish to the net using whatever tackle you have?..

Some time ago there was a thread on how different anglers played and handled big fish which resulted in the design of the FM concept rod for barbel and big chub. The main point about any rod that has to cope with hard fighting fish is its ability to absorb high shock loads. This is more to do with it action rather than just its test curve. You can set the drag on your reel to stop the line from breaking, however, a rod with all the bend in the top quarter of the rod will have to have the reel clutch set slightly lighter than a rod with a though action and a much larger bend radius. The through action rod puts less force on your line slowing a fish down than a rod with all the action in the tip.
There is no point in having a high test curve rod if you can only use a thin/low breaking strain line to hook the fish in the first place. The line must match the rod within reason. My own personal opinion is light lines and high-test curve rods are bad news for handling big fish. A fish that has to be worn down by allowing it to swim around for hours before netting is bad angling technique.

I play all fish big or small the same way, rod low, tip touching the surface.
They just keep swimming towards the waiting net.
I don't even bring the rod vertical when the rig shows, I lift the rod slightly to the side and net the fish.
I seem to take less time to land fish than most anglers I see.

John is correct.

You can use a 12 lbs line on the concept and really hammer the fish. The curve of resilience will cushion any shock and incredibly as it sounds you can put more pressure on the fish with a flexible rod than you can with a stiff rod, everything else being equal.

The only difference is in what are termed: "hook and hold" situations where the extra flex in the rod just might let the fish get to its sanctuary, be it a tree root or a mass of lily stems.

A long stiff rod however causes too much lever arm to be working against you. If your rod is very stiff, let it be shorter in length, no more than 10 feet for example.

Personally I much prefer to land any fish as quickly as possible. I don't like playing fish at all for long periods, however I have at times done this, due to hooking very big fish on very light tackle.

I have invariably lost them.

So you dont enjoy the fight at all Ron?

I just want a Long Stiff Rod to play em on!

To be truthful Michael, I don't enjoy the fight at all.

To me the two most heart stopping moments in angling are the bite or take followed by a successful strike,

And the moment when the fish is in the net gives tremendous relief.

The fight is like going through the agony of running a hundred yards and the relief, when it's all over, is the supreme pleasure.

I must be greedy then because i love it all ,the take ,the strike, the fight and even the release .When i first started carping about seven years ago I used to fish a place that had fish up to 25 pounds and the first two years i used almost exclusively a match rod and a waggler float taking carp to 20 pounds on a 3lb hook link is really heart stopping and i don,t know how i managed to get myself to the present where i sit behind buzzers most of the time with 2.5lb t/c rods and 12lb line ,hair rigs ect ,i cant help feeling i,ve lost the path somewhere along the way.

No need to use 2.5 lb pokers Bill. Why not get yourself a couple of FM Concepts and use them with 10lb line.

You'll enjoy the fight better with these rods than with modern so called "Carp rods"

(horrid things - I wouldn't even use them for pike or catfish - or grow beans up them!)

What would you use for pike then Ron?For deadbaiting?

90% of my pike fishing is done on the Fens.

I have a couple of cheap Daiwa Vuncan X 10 footers that have landed lots of doubles using dead baits. I feel confident in landing the biggest pike on these rods.

I have also used FM concepts with small dead baits and 15 lb line. On the majority of the fenland drains you only need to lob out even a large deadbait.

I spent 2 winters fishing a large East Yorkshire lake from a boat with my old friend Eric Hodson in 1998/1999 and 2000/2001. We used half mackerels most of the time. I used a pair of glass fibre 11 footers designed and built by Eric in the late 60s for Lomond fishing. Lines were 15 pound Daiwa Sensor most of the time.

We caught, during those two incredible winters, so many pike we lost count. (You do when you are our age and you have to chuck out all the smelly T shirts).

The biggest fish was a 23 and the smallest a 15. We had about 10 over 20 of which 9 came to me. (I am a lucky b....d)

At no time did I feel that I needed better gear than I was using. Those glass rods were completely adequate. They were all through action, (non of this tippy carp rod crap)and I guess the test curves were in the 21/2 to 3 pound category. Although for many reasons these days I think that the test curve rating with modern rods is flawed. Read the reasons for this on Harrison's web site.

You don't need a fancy or an expensive rod to catch pike on deadbaits.

Least of all a bloody silly modern carp rod.

Unless you are a tackle tart that is.

It's easy for you guys who have been fishing for a long time but for me it's just confusing. I have only just come back to fishing after 50 years and when I fished before I used a 8ft tank aeriel and a mitchell reel, a couple of avon floats,6 pound line and a assortment of hooks and ledgers that lived in a 2oz woodbine tin. I did all types of fishing with that simple set up. now I just get confused, match rods?feeders(what the hell) and as for the reels what the heck is a big pit????

Terry
ps Ive scratched so much of my head I'm going bald.

Stop scratching Terry, most of it's sales talk.
If you haven't heard it before,us anglers get caught more than fish.
A big pit by the way,is big fixed spool reel, the likes of which you may have seen in a beach casters possession!

Cheers , life was simple in those days you dreamed of the best cane rods and that was it, I was born on the tidle reaches of the Severn so eels and flounders where our staple diet, whith the odd small sammon if you where lucky(one 6lb once)it tasted lovely. now there does not seem to be a rod for all types any more though I must say the price of tackle is a lot cheaper now. the good cane rods back then would have been over ?50(about a 1,ooo nowadays).