re: Flyfishing question

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quote:
On bigger fish, I usually use the reel.


This. You only have to have one nice fish make a run while hand stripping, getting the excess line wrapped around the butt of the rod and breaking off to make you learn to put the fish on the reel....

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Amen. When this does happen...and it will...the trick is to stop the line ahead of the reel and let the fish pull the rod down while you flip the line onto the right side of the reel. Most of the time you will not be succesful but occasionally it will work. The same is true of boat cleats, other fisherman in the boat, your damned dog,..what ever it is that the line has wrapped around you have a mili second at best to let the fish pull the rod down while you unloop whatever you managed to loop. Having a bunch of stripped in slack or excess line from casting has saved more fish than all the game wardens there ever were....