If you started fishing small streams for small fish like I did it takes time to learn to get the fish on the reel. It also feels a little funny at first but if you are fishing bigger water for bigger fish you need to let the fish take line until you get them on the reel, then use the reel for line control and let the drag play the fish. If you use the hand over hand method you end up with a big loop of slack line that will cause you to lose the fish should you miss one of those hand over hand moves and drop the line.
A large arbor reel helps but is far from necessary Mike M -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jerry Goldsmith Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2005 10:25 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [VFB] Line control and Large Arbor Reels Listers, I am wondering about line control when trout fishing on rivers with current. I noticed when I was retrieving line after catching a trout this past week, I frequently got all messed up when the trout would start running into the line that I had been hand retrieving. It made for quite a mess. Even worse, after releasing the trout, my line would be way down stream and tangled. It was a major pain to get the line untangled and then back in place so I could cast again. Eventually, I started to get every fish on the reel. I mostly used the "slap the reel" method to get the line back on the reel and once I got caught up, I simply played and landed the fish using the reel. I am quite used to doing this , because most of my saltwater fish are landed on the reel. It dawned on me that a large arbor reel would get the line back on the reel more quickly. So, I have two questions: 1. How do you land a fish on a river with current ? If you do not use the reel, how do you control the excess line. 2. If you do use a reel, is it a large arbor? Thanks, JG Jerry Goldsmith Altamonte Springs, Fl [EMAIL PROTECTED]
