Fighting a Fish and landing em....

You listened to the bait shop guy and bought his equipment, so in return he offers a hot spot to try. After a couple of casts, you feel a strike and set the hook. The reel screams, and youre hooked up to a huge fish ... now what?


Take It Easy
The first thing to do is relax. New anglers tend to panic when a fish is taking out line and reel furiously, which puts a twist in the line for each time they crank it if they are using a spinning rod. Let the drag and rod do the work. Before the fight, you should have set your drag — using a hand scale — at around 25 percent of the line’s breaking strength, so if you are using 12-pound test, you should be using about 4 pounds of drag. Unless you have hooked Moby Dick, this should slow the fish down. If it looks like it’s not stopping, pull up the anchor and idle after the fish. But don’t apply more drag, just make sure to keep the rod at about a 45-degree angle to the water, and point it in the direction to where the line enters the water.

Steady As She Goes
When the fish slows down and stops taking more line, it’s time to go to work. The best technique for the catch is to gently pull the rod up and then reel down as you lower it, using a pumping motion. Do it in small, smooth strokes rather than large abrupt sweeps because it will help keep both the line tight and the fish much calmer. If the fish runs again, let it go and you will probably notice that this run is shorter. That’s a good sign — it means you are wearing the fish down. While you don’t want to horse a fish, you don’t want to let it rest during the fight either, so when the reel isn’t singing, you should be trying to regain line ... even if it is only a few inches at a time.

Close The Deal
When the fish gets close, this is a critical time in the fight because often it will panic when it sees the boat. If the fish is directly below the boat, make sure you don’t hold the rod too high, or it can break. If the fish suddenly goes under the boat, jam the rod tip straight down in the water so it won’t snag the bottom of the boat or foul on the engine’s lower unit. If you need a little extra pressure when pumping the fish, use the palm of your hand on the spool, but be ready to take it off if the fish runs. When a really big fish gets close to the boat, use side pressure to try to turn the fish’s head by smoothly pulling the rod toward the fish’s tail. This often causes the fish to give up the fight, which makes the next part easier.

Catch And Release

Use a net to land the fish.
If you are releasing the fish, make sure the net is wet, so it will be less abrasive to the fish’s protective slime. If you have a helper, place them between you and the fish and lead the fish toward the net by walking backwards when you can’t reel any more. Never try to sweep the net at the fish from behind, always net toward the fish’s head, because it can’t swim backwards. If you are keeping the fish for dinner, get it on ice. If you are releasing it, take a picture and get it back in the water, taking time to resuscitate it by grabbing it by the tail and moving it back and forth in the water until it swims off. Like the back of the shampoo bottle reads under its instructions: “Repeat.”

FISHING HOOKS

First the definition: A fishing hook is a hook used to catch fish. It may be barbed or barbless. It is usually attached to a fishing line. In general the hook is concealed within the bait or trailed closely behind or within the lure.

I just got back from my regular tackle shop and I saw a group of young anglers looking at the rack for hooks. They looked puzzled and couldn't decide what hooks to use. And usually they will go for the mid range - the one that's the "average size".

Who could blame them there are more than 50,000 different hook designs out there.

Here we try to shed some light on hooks.

Where is a good place to start but from sizing and naming conventions of the major categories of hooks and in fact is a very important part of your tackle because the type of hook you select will make a difference, and hook selection depends on the species of fish being sought.

Parts of a Hook

Fishing hooks come in many shapes and sizes and materials each variety serving a different purpose. Here is a brief overview of the parts that make up a fly-fishing hook.

The Eye is where your leader is threaded
and tied.

The Bend is the part that is curved.

The Shank of the hook is the straight
part that extends from behind the eye to the beginning of the bend.

The Gap is lies between the shank and
point of the hook.

The Barb is what makes a hook stick in a
fishes mouth (or your body parts). Some CnR anglers will remove the barbs before
using. This is to ensure easy de-hooking of the fish.


Hook Sizes- Size does matter

Fishing hooks use a twofold numbering scheme that measures from the smallest hook to the largest hook.

The smallest hook readily available is size 24. This is a hook with a 1/16 of an inch gap and it’s used for tiny fishes such as whiting or Tamban (sardines). As the size number decreases, the width of the hook gap increases, all the way to a size 1. A size 1 hook has a gap about ½ inch in width.

At this point the numbering scheme changes and begins with 1/0 , which is larger in size than a number 1 and goes all the way up to 20/0, the largest commercially made hook.

Don't bother remembering the numbers because there isn't really a standard although most manufacturers should make hooks pretty close to this numbering scheme. Variations still occurs.

For novice angles I would recommend a size 1 up to size 3/0. However a study of the anatomy of the target fish is important to decide upon the best choice of hook.

Types of Hooks:

Hook offset: For Up eyed hooks the shanks require more force and heavier line to set. And must be snelled in order to allow proper setting. On straight-eye hooks, tie directly with your favorite knot.

Besides sizes of hooks you would need to pay attention to the thickness of the hook depending on the target fish.

FURTHER READING

(From the Scientific Catch-and-Release Studies - South Carolina Department of Natural Resources)
Non-offset Circle hooks gut hooked the least number of fish in both studies (sub-adults and adults). Offset Circle hooks were intermediate. J-hooks gut hooked the most fish in both studies.

Despite the fact that offset Circle hooks gut hooked an intermediate number of fish, the largest percentage of these fish died as a result of hooking injuries.

When fishing for adult red drum, Non-offset Circle hooks caught almost 2 times as many fish as J-hooks did. They also gut hooked substantially fewer fish than J-hooks did.

The best hook to use when you will RELEASE some of your red drum is the Non-offset Circle hooks.