Fly Rod Fighting Strategies - Part II: Fishing From Boats

This issue: In Part I, FRED STEYNBERG discussed fighting fresh water species using lighter rods with light tippets that generally enable small and imitative flies to be presented delicately. In Part II, he focusses on heavier rods and terminal tackle for casting larger flies to bigger and more aggressive species.

- Fred Steynberg

When fighting fish on a heavier rod using a thicker leader, you need to consider a few important fundamentals with regard to tippet configuration; first and foremost being protecting your rod from breaking when fighting big fish. Targeting fish in discoloured or salt water often calls for thicker tippet or leader diameter to guard against the abrasive nature of not only a fish’s mouth, gill plate or tail, but also against reefs, rocks and coral bommies they might run over or hide behind. In the past, we used to build a class tippet into the leader so that it would/should break before the rod broke. The strength of the class tippet was never much more than what the fly rod (if used correctly) could pull at its max. A 12-wt rod can exert a maximum pressure of about 14lb, so our class tippet was 14lb to 15lb, taking into consideration possible loss of line strength when making knots. (This is not the only application for a class tippet; it can also be incorporated into a leader to comply with IGFA standards when the angler goes after a specific species in order to claim a record.)

The more we fished, the more we understood how much pressure the rod could withstand before breaking, and before long the class tippet faded out completely. Flats fishing was at that time seldom practised, and because we were mostly boat-bound, we had to apply a few rules to protect the rod when fighting the fish. Most breakages occur during the final effort of pulling the tiring fish closer to the boat. The angler’s body is cocked backwards, allowing the base of the rod to angle back past the 12 o’clock position, forcing an unnatural bend in the mid- to upper section. Unlike conventional rods, most fly rods cannot handle this type of bend, and usually it’s the midsection of a three-piece rod or the third section of a four-piece rod that gives up the ghost.