Rod Weight, Leader Length and Big Fish!

Posted by philip on October 29, 2007

I was blessed yesterday with landing two big fish.  The experience embodied the reason for fly fishing and made me consider a few things.  Gear selection and leader setup are two things you should think about when hitting a river known to produce large fish.

First, I thought it would be cute to take my 7′-6″ 4wt on a stream that I know holds large fish.  I thought it would be a challenge to land decent fish in the 16-18 inch range, and make the experience with smaller fish more interesting.  This proved to be an accurate assumption, and almost a mistake.  Thankfully, the flow in the stream was low, as are most PA trout streams this time of year.

I managed several fish in the first hour, and the first big fish came in the first hour and a half.  It was a brown in a beautiful section of fast deep water who slammed the nymphs so hard I thought I snagged a mack truck!  He shot upstream spooling line out at a breakneck rate.  Thankfully, again, the low water level and the slack water on my casting side of the stream allowed me to “direct” him into areas where line tension from the current would be minimal, allowing me to deal with the weight of the fish alone.  I was actually concerned about the rod for a while, and the thought of trying to break him off even crossed my mind.  I held on, though, and finally managed him to the net.  He was then carefully revived, and released, but not before I dropped my $500 video camera in the drink trying to capture him on film.

I continued fishing, with a “miss”, “fish on then lost”, or a “fish to the net” about every 4-5 casts for the next few hours.  After lunch, I encountered the next true test of my light weight rig’s ability to land big fish.  I was pitching a heavily weighted pair of nymphs into the head of a deep pool when I saw the flash of a big fish.  The flash was followed by jerk of the indicator and a jerk of my arm as I set the hook.  She was acrobatic, and her entire huge body left the water around 3 times after the hook set.  This rainbow really made me question my desire to fish light tackle.  She made 4 big runs on me, upstream and down until I finally got her to me.  It was then that I realized my second mistake.  My leader was too long.

I typically try to keep a good handle on the length of the leader, but when you’re heavy into fish, and breaking off consistently,  it’s easy to add a little too much tippet and end up with a rig that wont let you swing a fish to your net.  Thankfully, I have long arms, and I somehow managed by bending my back backwards, and extending my body as long as I could to get her into the net.  Thank God I had a net too.  She was so tall that I couldn’t get my hand around her.  My later measurement of my arm from the tip of my fingers to about 2 inches past my elbow tells me she was about 24″ and about 7-1/2″ tall.  One of the most beautiful things about this catch (not my stumbling around trying to net her) was that the #16 barbless hook was centered exactly in the middle of her upper jaw.  A perfect hookset.

I’ve landed some big fish in my time, and some on fairly light tackle, but this was the biggest fish on the lightest rig that I’ve ever managed.  Some things that I did that I think helped me land these two:

(a) When I saw that I had a big fish, I made a conscious effort not to become overly excited.  Keeping my adrenaline down kept me from horsing her.  Try telling yourself: “oh well, I have a big fish on, I’ll probably loose it, and it doesn’t matter” or things like that.  (b) My arms were already tired from fishing heavily from 7:30 to 2:00 with very few breaks, and quite a few fish, so even if my adrenaline was rushing, my muscles probably wouldn’t have been much of a factor anyway.  (c) being that my leader was longer than it should’ve been, there might have been more elasticity in the line, for a little more forgiveness.  (d) I tried really hard to direct her out of fast water, and as mentioned, the water was lower than normal (more on directing below).  (e) I had my drag set correctly, and I let her run when she wanted to run.  Including at the apparent end of the fight when I got her near my net.  Always assume that a fish has one last “bolt”/run left in them when you get them near the net the first time.

More on directing fish.  You can direct a fish by laying your rod on one side or the other.  I actually had my rod horizontal to the water several times, and only a few inches off the water.  You’ll be amazed how easy it is to direct a fish when you lay your rod down horizontally.  A few things to keep in mind when doing this.  One, make sure your sessions of directing are kept at a minimum.  Two, immediately after “directing” return your rod to a vertical position to get the fish’s head up.  Remember, that unless you’ve foul hooked a fish, you’ve got control over where they swim.  If you can get their head pointed in the direction you want them to go, their body will follow like a torpedo.

Philip Light