Setting The Hook

Ripping Lips
(The Right Way)

The past thirteen years of my life have revolved around my love for flyfishing. With most of those years spent as a guide, I have had a unique opportunity to fish with anglers from a wide variety of skill levels. From beginner's, to some of the best flyfisherman in the country, studying their particular techniques has improved my fishing considerably. However, there is one mistake I see almost all anglers make. It dose not lie in their casting, presentation, or other areas one might think. The most commonly made mistake of flyfisherman is in the setting of the hook.

You will see it time and time again, an angler throws the perfect presentation, and is able to get the fish to come up. After a violent rod jerk, missing a fish of a lifetime, a barrage of colorful adjectives are
angrily shouted. This scenario has happened to all of us, at one time or another. You will find that the "average" fly angler, only gets a hook set less than 50 percent of the time. There are many reasons why this is so.
Many of these problems can be easily rectified, if the angler is patient and has and open mind to change.

These mistakes are usually learned in ones youth. Dad threads the worm onto the hook, adjusts the bobber, and hurls into the center of a bass pond. After watching the bobber for a moment, it starts to do the dace. When it goes down Dad yells, "you got him yank it hard". Yanking into the air will usually catch a kid a blue gill with a snoopy combo pole. That same technique however, will lose the trout for the grown up kid, with the
$600.00 graphite wonder stick. Lifting a flyrod straight into the sky is not the way to try and hook a willing fish.

First, fly line is thousands of times more dense than mono. This creates much more water resistance on fly line. When the rod is lifted, the friction of the slack line skimming across the water bends the rod, and by the time it is out, the fish is gone. Unless you are "high sticking" a close fish in fast current, you rarely are able to hook the fish setting in this manner. When are able to get the fish on in this way, it usually isn't you who hooked it
at all. The fish took the fly and swam away from the angler. When this happens, it seldom ends up in a landed fish. Normally, the fish isn't hooked solid enough, and is able to shake the fly loose.

Fly rods are also one of the best shock absorbers money can buy. When one is held in that upright position, the weight of the fish is distributed throughout the rod. This is why we are able to land a Six pound plus fish,
on two pound test. This same shock absorbing feature, also severely reduces the amount of pressure needed to set on a fish. No matter how hard you rip that line off the water, the fish is still doing more to set the hook than you are.

The remedy to this problem is often much easier said than done. It starts in the beginning of the presentation. Remember, the shortest distance between two points, is a straight line. You will want to mend your line as
straight as possible, between you and the fish. Leaving just enough slack on the water to keep the fly drag free, instead of the piles of line most anglers end up with. When the fish strikes, strip your line hard and leavethe rod down! You may also need to turn the rod away from the fish, but you still want to leave it down. Setting in this way uses the river current to help apply the pressure necessary to hook the fish. When you feel that the
fish is on, then raise the rod to protect your tippet. It is not uncommon to be able to get a good set on a fish, that is out a hundred feet or more when this is done correctly. You may also need to strip three or four time before you actually feel the fish. Make sure that you feel that the fish is actually on before you raise you tip.

The same rule applies in an up stream presentation. When the fly hits the water, hold the rod tip down to the surface. As the it comes to you, slowly retrieve your line so there isn't a build up of slack. When the fish takes,
strip hard and turn the rod down stream. The rod wont be able to bend as greatly, bringing the set more into the butt and mid section of your rod. There is were all of the rods power lies.

Learning to make these techniques work for you, will take patients. Most anglers have to re-learn what they have always known about setting the hook. If you are able to resist the urge to set in the air, you will see the
results of your efforts. Remember also that all of us make mistakes and you will lift that rod more times than you would like. If that occours, make sure you maintain you strip. Usaully if an angler makes a bad set, stripping the line quickly will keep tenson on the fish long enough to get good control of it's head and a chance to hit the fish agian with the rod. After a while and a test in patinece, you will be "putting metal to the fish" much more than you ever have before.

By Steve B. Walser