Landing large fish on light gear.

[jacques]

Without appearing to brag or say l am better than others l have over the years managed to land some decent sized fish on lighter gear.
Some weeks ago l hooked a large carp which turned out a 12lb'er on a 0.15mm hook length and Map green elastic(10/14) rated.
A competent angler watching me was quite surprised when l just slammed the pole back and immediately got on to the top 2 and started to draw the side puller. Despite the elastic being almost out to max. The pole tip was thrust down to the bottom of the lake. In 4' of water, this confused the fush and quickly the fish was a my feet. I lifted the top2 and put the carp in the net. Watching angler just gobsmacked.
Agin yesterday l hooked a double on my 11' Drennan Acolyte waggler rod and a 0.16 hooklength. As the fish slammwd away screaming the clutch l rammed the rod tip to the lake bottom. Tottaly against conventional thought of raising the rod to 45 %. Within seconds the fish was back at my feet. After a few mire minutes it was in the net. Just try putting the rod/ pole tip yo the bottom next time you have a big fish on. You will be amazed how quickly rhey come in.

[Deleted]

Big fish on a pole used to mean heavy elastics but these days the trend is lighter elastics combined with puller kits.
Because hollow elastic stretches forever hopefully the fish will turn before it bottoms the elastic and the puller kit gets the fish to the net.
This balanced approach is kinder to the fish and avoids lots of hook pulls which often happened with heavy elastics and there was always a chance of mouth damage from dragging the fish on heavy gear.
The one thing a fish doesn't want to do is leave the water so having a pole in the air pulling it to the surface makes the fish fight harder as it panics and may also mean snapping your pole if you haven't had time to break down to the top kit.
Playing the fish with the pole under the water stops the fish from panicking,match anglers lead the fish like a dog to within netting distance then attempt to scoop it up first time.
The same concept seems to have transferred to rod and line,anglers playing fish with the rod parallel to the bank rather than vertical as we used to do so the fish doesn't think it's being pulled to the surface.
Of course none of this will work unless the rod,line,and clutch are balanced correctly but  a competent angler should be able to land good fish on relatively light tackle with that bit of luck we all need.
I think it was a Matt Hayes video where an angler said  fish panic when coming to the surface because they have no eye lids and the light frightens them so always play them so they can stay deep.
Interesting post,John  .

[andy76]

I landed a dace on a piece of cotton once as a child match stick as a float