Starlo’s back to basics

Stay calm, catch fish!

NSW STH COAST Steve Starling

www.fishotopia.com

Fishing can be extremely exciting, but learning to manage that excitement and keep your cool under pressure is an incredibly vital component in becoming a consistently successful angler. or ‘action’ and you come up with a reasonably apt metaphor for fishing, too.

We all fish for a multitude of reasons: to catch a feed, spend time with family and friends, enjoy the great outdoors… and also to get the blood pumping and the adrenalin coursing through our veins… For the sheer thrill of it! Anyone who’s watched a world of difference between excitement and panic.

Too many fisher – especially new chums – allow their emotions to run completely unchecked and out of control at these super critical times, and they often make mistakes as a result… Mistakes that can cost them and others fish.

An ability to think and act reasonably calmly – or

“Got ’im!” Staying calm and having a game plan resulted in success for these anglers, in the form of a lovely Spanish mackerel from tropical waters.

I always smile quietly to myself when non-angling friends talk about fishing being ‘boring’, and claim that they’d never have the patience for it. In my experience, good anglers aren’t, by nature, particularly patient people. If they’re not scoring at least a few fish, they want to know why, and they want to turn things around. Sure, there can be frequent quiet spells and blank patches in most forms of fishing, but these tend to be punctuated by bursts of intense activity. I once heard war described as ‘long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror’. Replace the word ‘terror’ with ‘mayhem’ big, blue-nosed bream sidle up under a paused minnow, witnessed a lit-up giant trevally exploding all over a chugging popper, seen a hefty brown trout slurp a dry fly from the surface, or lunged with shaking hands for a buckled-over game outfit straining in its rod holder as line screams from the spool against a hard-set drag knows exactly how thrilling fishing can be.

It’s natural — and actually desirable — to be excited when these moments of intense action occur. The day we stop getting a kick out of such experiences is probably the day we should take up golf… or stamp collecting. But there’s a at least adopt a semi-calm façade – often under intense pressure, is one of the most important character traits I’ve observed in the ranks of consistently successful anglers. While those around them are hooting, hollering, yahooing and generally losing their, um, ‘stuff’, these cooler heads are typically getting on with the task at hand: hooking, fighting and landing fish.

The ability to retain a certain degree of calm and composure is particularly important in the final stages of fighting and landing a prize catch… especially one you’ve been dreaming about scoring for a long time. It’s so very easy to lose your cool when that big fish finally shimmers into view. This is one reason so many fish are lost in those final minutes or even seconds of an extended encounter. There’s a natural and very human urge to simply want to get the damn thing out of the water and into the boat or up onto the bank. But trying to rush that final step can be absolutely disastrous.

The closing stages of any fish fight are the time when we have the least cushioning effects left from any stretch in the line and leader. Also, damage to that line has likely been accumulating through the fight, and is at its most critical now, not to mention the fact that the hook will have been slowly tearing and wearing a larger hole in the fish’s lip or jaw with each lunge, run and head shake. With these thoughts whirling wildly through your mind, there’s a very strong tendency to follow one of two potentially fatal paths – to tighten up and pull harder, or back right off and go too soft. Both actions can easily cost fish.

The folly of pulling too hard is obvious, but going too light is potentially just as insidious. There’s nothing wrong with backing the drag off a click or two and lowering the rod slightly as the end game approaches. In fact, it’s often good practice. But backing off too much can give the fish its ‘second wind’ and dramatically extend the fight. This ramps up and multiplies the chances of things going wrong. Hooks pull, leaders wear out, fish find snags… or sharks finds fish! The longer any stoush goes on, the greater the risk of such calamities.

The big secret is to stay

calm(ish!), keep the coolest head you possibly can, and don’t start second guessing yourself. If your knots and drag setting got you this far, chances are they’ll finish the job. Having a solid game plan in mind and actively visualising a successful end game can really help. For me, so does talking calmly about what’s actually going on: to my companions, a camera, or even just to myself!

In closing, remember you’re not the one with a hook in your mouth, potentially fighting for your existence. Up to a point, time is on your side, not the fish’s. Stay calm, be cool and finish the job!

Who wouldn’t get excited when faced with a scene like this? But now is not the time to backlash that reel or throw your lure off. Calm down and make the cast!

So close! Who wouldn’t be nervous, battling their first-ever Indo-Pacific permit on fly? But this is the point at which at least a semblance of calm is essential on the part of both the angler and his net man… And yes, they got it.