fighting a fish on fly

[saml]

Ja i think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is to spend all day nymphing if you start using a 5 or 6 wt, like all the other guys said fly rods always seem to be able to bend more than you think they can handle.
One thing GGY taught me - When fishing for yellows, before you even 'cast', always have a plan for landing a fish - there is more often than not a section of quiet, slower water nearby, so if you get a nice fish you know exactly where to wade to to give yourself an easier fight.

[saml]

Gerrit, I think I'm starting to get the feel for a foul hooked muddy, especially in fast flowing water. There is very little fight, you just feel you are hooked, almost as if on a rock, and then the line starts moving around with little jabs as the muddy kicks to stay in current, and then nothing as the hook pulls out. I noticed that with a properly hooked yellow there is no question once you set the hook. The fish races away at speed, alotta fun indeed. Not sure about a foul hooked yellow though, haven't got one out yet.

For me that feeling that you're stuck on a rock and then it slowly starts swimming away happens a lot even with properly hooked yellows.

[gkieser]

HI BenzoV,

Nope - I am Grant, but you are not the first to ask about George Kieser - I am not related to him though. I was at Hilton College.

I actually agree with Gerrit - if the fish are so uncontrollable, i recon they are probably foul hooked - you will not be able to turn a foul hooked yellowfish very easily at all so that makes the most sense.

Man, i've got a lus for a little bit of SM Yellowfish action. Gotta see if i can't get up to the orange next week.

[BenzoV]

Ja i think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is to spend all day nymphing if you start using a 5 or 6 wt, like all the other guys said fly rods always seem to be able to bend more than you think they can handle.
One thing GGY taught me - When fishing for yellows, before you even 'cast', always have a plan for landing a fish - there is more often than not a section of quiet, slower water nearby, so if you get a nice fish you know exactly where to wade to to give yourself an easier fight.

I heard GGY say that on THE podcast series as well. This area I was fishing in is a little side stream that actually flows into a nice calm pool, which then tails out into fairly fast flowing water, which then eventually joins the main flow of the vaal. My point being that besides the stream where I hooked the fish, there is plenty of calm water to play a fish in. These fish just headed straight for the tail of the pool which was about 15m away, and once they were in there I knew I had to start running, falling over rocks and swimming.

[markdej]

I was fishing an 8lb straight leader with 5 lb tippet.

Thats half the problem you are facing.
A #9 will not afford the tipped protection that a lighter rod would (this can buffer the breaking strain of your tippet by up to 30%) so you will probably find that you are playing down your fight for fear of popping tippet.

I fish up to 3x stoft (4.2kg or so I think) on my #6 and you can quite happily pull on that with all your might without damaging the rod. (You'd be amazed at how a fly rod can fold in half) and with that setup have easily subdued some pretty decent fish with the largest being a 9kg cat. By applying as much force as you dare, using the appropriate tippet and using side strain as Grant mentioned you should easily be able to subdue near anything the vaal can throw at you on a #9.

One last thing that may help is that often with smallies if you relax your pressure on them a bit they tend to relax aswell and you can then regain your composure and bring them to hand quite quickly.

With muddies I find if you can lift them off the substrate quickly then half the battle is won as they use their shape to just hold station and once they are unable to do so it becomes far less of a mexican stand off.

[schloshd1]

Thats half the problem you are facing.
A #9 will not afford the tipped protection that a lighter rod would (this can buffer the breaking strain of your tippet by up to 30%) so you will probably find that you are playing down your fight for fear of popping tippet.

I fish up to 3x stoft (4.2kg or so I think) on my #6 and you can quite happily pull on that with all your might without damaging the rod. (You'd be amazed at how a fly rod can fold in half) and with that setup have easily subdued some pretty decent fish with the largest being a 9kg cat. By applying as much force as you dare, using the appropriate tippet and using side strain as Grant mentioned you should easily be able to subdue near anything the vaal can throw at you on a #9.

One last thing that may help is that often with smallies if you relax your pressure on them a bit they tend to relax aswell and you can then regain your composure and bring them to hand quite quickly.

With muddies I find if you can lift them off the substrate quickly then half the battle is won as they use their shape to just hold station and once they are unable to do so it becomes far less of a mexican stand off.

Mark actually pulled so hard on that 9kg barbel that he had to light up a smoke half way through fighting it. I think that it helped that the #6 he was using is so limp that you could tie it in a knot.

[markdej]

Mark actually pulled so hard on that 9kg barbel that he had to light up a smoke half way through fighting it. I think that it helped that the #6 he was using is so limp that you could tie it in a knot.

Thats a vicious lie and you know it man
I lit the smoke atleast 70% of the way through the fight and thats just cause I couldnt get him onto the bank to grab his bottom lip
Oh and that #6 is a 7pc so it may look limp but all those ferrules add up to quite a bit of pulling power

[MyWorld]

I'm no expert, but I can share these two pieces of advice:
What Turner once told us at a Bells is to try and get the fish's head above water as quickly as possible as well. This will tire the fish almost immediately and you can land it very, very quickly. If it manages to go on a run again, just keep on trying to lift it's head above water.
This with side pressure like mentioned will get the fish in the net quickly.

This works for average sized fish, but if you have a bus on the other end (3,5kg+) then it becomes a challenge and I would not recommend this unless you KNOW your tippet will hold!
With such a large fish, if it struggles and the tail hits the tippet it could be game over.

Another thing to consider, if you say you used to do competition "papgooi" then you should know when a buddy helps you land a fish you usually wait for your buddy to get behind the fish and then you give slack and 99% of the time the fish swims straight into the net while trying to get into deeper water again.
The same principal can be applied when landing yellows. Get the fish a bit tired, get it upstream of you with the net behind the fish, give slack and the fish should gently swim into the net downstream.

I landed a bus like this in a very strong current a few weeks back.


I have seen a lot of people trying to "fish" their catch into the net while battling the current, make the current work for you, even when fighting the fish.

[FCLoretz]

Then steer the fish as quickly as possible to the calmest water, even a moderate sized yellow will kick your ass as long as you let in swim in the main stream. For the first minute or so the fish normally fights upstream, thats typical of smallmouth yellows. Try and force the fish into calm water during this part of the battle, as soon as it turns downstream you're in for sh@t if you havent managed to get it out of the main stream!

try and get the fish's head above water as quickly as possible as well. This will tire the fish almost immediately

please correct me if I am wrong in my statement below, but this is my take on what read out of the other posts:

A fish without oxygen tires quickly. Yellows hangs in the rapids, due to higher oxygen levels in the rapids. Therefor you want to get the fish into calm water, less oxygen and less current to fight. The head above water is also to reduce a fish's oxygen intake.

[wernerm]

please correct me if I am wrong in my statement below, but this is my take on what read out of the other posts:

A fish without oxygen tires quickly. Yellows hangs in the rapids, due to higher oxygen levels in the rapids. Therefor you want to get the fish into calm water, less oxygen and less current to fight. The head above water is also to reduce a fish's oxygen intake.

That doesn't sound very sporting to me? Suffocate him to get him in faster?