Bernd Ziesche | Wednesday, 6 March 2019
That in my experience is the resistance, which our fly line provides to all fish taking our fly!
When blind fishing (not sight fishing) we are focussing on FEELING the take. Obviously we only can feel the take, when the fish moves the hole fly line between the rod tip and the fly. Depending on the distance this can mean a lot of line mass to be moved + a lot of friction (line surface/water) to be overcome.
In addition our fly line is hardly ever straight. Fair to summarize: The more curves there are in our line between the fish and the rod tip, the more this sort of slack will dampen the chance of feeling the take. Of course all sort of stretch in our fly line and leader also will support to dampen the take.
When fishing for all those species of fish not just grabbing the fly and running of with it, but taking it and then spitting it out in the very same second, we often miss a lot of takes without ever knowing it. Those of us who have fished clear water will know, that we can see a fair number of takes without ever feeling them!
Fishing for those species of fish (like for example pike) not spitting out the fly but holding it and then turning to run off in opposite direction, many of us very often mistake the run for the take! I have often seen the take by very carefully watching my line in front of my rod tip without being able to feel it. One or two seconds later the run then felt like a strong take. Watching the line in front of the tip to see the take though ONLY works in absolut calm conditions. Believe me: Often we can't feel the take and then strip into the fish, which took our fly a second or more ago! Still very few of us fly fishermen know this.
A key in improving the chance of feeling the take is in reducing the line weight (and thus line surface as well). Often that also helps to reduce slack in our line system. Of course the lowest possible stretch in our system helps as well.
In some areas of fly fishing like in czech nymphing we already have learnt how much takes we will be missing when not reducing the resistance, which our connection to the fly provides to the fish. In many other fields of fly fishing we still haven't learnt this!
During the next weeks I will have further tests on reducing the resistance of my line system when fishing for Zander (pike perch) and perch. Flavio from Switzerland put my nose into a great idea on this. You may follow us here:
Sexyloops Thread
If you are up on some new details on fishing for whatever species of fish, I'd love to read about it here on the Sexyloops board. We are having a proper number of fly fishing enthusiasts sharing a lot of knowledge here!
Great fishing week to all of you!
All my best
Bernd
Some pictures of our last days...