How do you guys play your fish?

Do you just keep your rod high and bring it in? Or do you dip your rod to the left or right to pull the fish through the water?

This is something I sometimes do if I want to bring the fish in, I will dip the rod tip, to my right for example if the fish is out on my left, which will allow my to pull the fish across in front of me. Once it is here I can bring the rod back up and it is close enough to net.

Passers by have once or twice told me to `keep it up keep it up keep it up` as I am doing this, which makes me wonder if I am doing something fundamentally wrong here?

Any thought?

Never having caught a trout, you can take this with a pinch of salt.


The logic behind submerging your rid tip for a fish on a charge is for two reasons as I understand it:

The first is that submerging the line changes the force applied by a rod. Tug of war guys don't do it with their hands above their head. Physics, forces wtc....

Secondly, and I have found this with carp heading for snags, a dipped rod will let the line run against the side of the fish. Perhaps this confuses them and causes them to change direction.

Carry on as you are

---------- Post added at 10:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 PM ----------

Not sure they mean actually dipping the tip under water BUT as you have said there are times when this is also needed .

When playing a fish just keep changing the direction you pull against the fish as needed , simply keep the pressure the opposite way to the fish is heading , if its going right you pull left etc ....

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Cheers Danny

Co-Founder of S.S.F.D 2010

This is generally what I would do. I only do it if I have met a kind of stale mate, where the fish is just holding flashing its **** in my face.

As I am trying not to fight the fish too much (on C&R) I find this helps me get him in a little quicker.

Just wondered if I was doing something silly thats all.

Keeping the rod low helps with carp and grayling, stops them wanting to go deep. Pulling oposite the rod. igh rod, deep fish. Trout are different to this. As been said, oposite pull and rod high. This is also to use full bend of the rod as shock absorber.

The only thing to watch for with trout is that unlike most coarse fish, the buggers jump!

As hard as I dare and then add 10%. I don't lose many either, but then I tend to fish 5 weights even on large stillwaters. I DO like to see that rod bend. If the fish wants to pull - fine! Me bigger, me pull harder.

There's an interesting article on playing fish on the Sage website.

Linky

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I must admit I tend towards keeping the rod high and the line tight, which is what I was taught. If the fish jumps, then dropping the tip slightly is easy. I also tend to get any loose line back onto the reel asap as I find this is easier for keeping a tight line. But, there is an alternative view which says not to do that....

Provided you are avoiding letting the line go slack when playing a fish, I think your technique is fine. If I am releasing the fish I'll sometimes apply a bit of side strain to get it in quicker. It still amazes me the number of times I find the hook (barbed or barbless) drops out in the net, i.e. once the line has gone slack.

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While playing a fish i was led to believe you put your rod down to the side and it turned their heads in that direction but if you keep it straight up the head cant move upwards and the fish pull down but the head can move sideways a bit so they have to swim in the direction they are facing. Never tried on the fly but it certainly works on pole or coarse rod so it should on fly gear.