By Kirk Deeter
Excerpt from the winter issue: “A seasoned guide is used to saying things like ‘tip up’ and ‘let ‘em run’ over and over again. And in most cases, that’s really solid advice, in so much as the goal is to avoid having the fish make a run and break you off. But the truth is that a 9-foot fly rod is a lever that helps the fish as much as it helps the angler.
The 9 feet are for casting, mending, and so forth. But if you play a large fish running around the maypole, you’re playing with fire. The real tension, and the real force happens through the line itself. So, dipping the rod tip low after the hookup, and being contrarian—fish runs left, you pull right, fish runs right, you force left—is the way to tire any species of hooked fish sooner, and that’s what will up your odds of landing it and getting the photograph you want. That’s most especially true with any saltwater fish. You want to pull on them with the line itself and tire them out, and you simply cannot depend on any rod to do that work for you.”
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Photo: Faceless Fly Fishing
