Playing and Landing Fish on a Fly

Playing and Landing Fish on a Fly.

Of all the books on fly fishing I have read little has been written about landing fish on a fly rod. There are numerous articles written on the subjects of casting, choosing equipment, and other tactics but little or nothing written on playing and landing a fish once you have him hooked.

The general rules that you will find in most books are kept to a minimum and usually contain only three:

Keep your rod tip up.
Keep pressure on the fish.
Don’t allow any slack in your line.

There is sometimes an explanation to these rules. You want to keep your rod tip up for leverage and shock absorption. Keep constant pressure on the fish to tire it out. When the hooked fish makes a run you have to give it some line but never let that line go slack because the fish will then have a better opportunity to snap your leader.

There may be a short snippet on fighting a fish from the reel but little more is found in most books. With this little bit of information you are led to believe that playing and landing fish on a fly rod is fairly simple.

Fighting a small fish on a fly rod can be as simple as holding the rod tip up and stripping line to reel him in. The problem comes when you hook into a decent sized smallmouth that is ticked off about the hook in his mouth.

So how do you fight these aggressive fish and land them more often. Well you could use trial and error to find the best tactics for landing them or you could pick up Floyd Franke’s book titled “Fish On! A Guide to Playing and Landing Big Fish on a Fly”

This book is the only book of its type. Franke takes the three general rules and further explains them. Then in further chapters he explains when it may be a good time to break these rules to have a better chance at landing the fish.

Franke has a chapter that goes deep into equipment, so you will have a better understanding of the purpose and importance of each piece in landing fish.

Floyd Franke is a staff member of the Joan and Lee Wulff School of Fly Fishing, a former Director of the Casting Board of Governors of the Federation of Flyfishers, an expert fly tier, and a top instructor.

If you want to increase your chances of landing more fish, I highly suggest adding this book to your library.

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