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Let me set this up for you. A stream with some nice sized trout rising. The angler
(right-handed) standing ankle deep makes his cast, a bit upstream, drifting a
nymph just under the surface. A fish takes. He raises his rod and stepping back,
reaches with his left hand and strips in some fly line. It all happens in a flash. With
years of practice at his aid he deftly switches hands and with the rod now in his
left hand and the line pinched under an index finger, reels like crazy with his
'good hand,' his right. The line that was stripped in now goes onto the reel
and the fish is 'put on the reel.' All is under control.
That is until the fish turns out to be 'Old Snaggle Tooth' and screams his way
downstream forcing the angler to point his rod at the fish and hope. It ends with a
SNAP as the line jams in the reel and stops dead.
What happened? Did he do anything wrong? Just plain bad luck? Here, read that
part again: The angler (right-handed) standing ankle deep makes his cast, a bit
upstream, drifting a nymph just under the surface. A fish takes. He raises his rod
and stepping back, reaches with his left hand and strips in some fly line. It all
happens in a flash. With years of practice at his aid he deftly switches hands and
with the rod now in his left hand and the line pinched under an index finger, reels
like crazy with his 'good hand,' his right. The line that was stripped in now goes
onto the reel and the fish is 'put on the reel.' All is under control.
That is until the fish turns out to be 'Old Snaggle Tooth' and screams his way
downstream forcing the angler to point his rod at the fish and hope. It ends with a
SNAP as the line jams in the reel and stops dead.
Well, now what do you think? He has years of doing it exactly that way, it couldn't
have been anything he did: he has always done it that way! Not good thinking here,
just because you have been doing something 'that way' does not mean there may
not have been another, or better way. Several things come to mind in the scene
above. Let me lay it out but this time change a few little things.
The angler (right-handed) standing ankle deep makes his cast, a bit up stream,
drifting a nymph just under the surface. A fish takes. He has been carefully
following the drifting line with his rod tip just above the water, stripping in line
with his left hand as the fly nears him and ready to pay out some line as it passes
by with a small tip roll mend. Before it gets that far, the fish hits. With the rod
low and the line in his left hand he gives a short tug, the fish is hooked.
Holding the rod in his right and pinching the line under his first finger and reeling
with his LEFT HAND, he uses the little finger of his RIGHT HAND
to 'level-wind' the line onto his fly reel. The fish screams for the other shore.
The line smoothly wound on the reel now plays out with ease.
Does this mean you should not switch hands? Not necessarily. That is if you are
good enough with your left hand to 'level-wind' the line onto your fly reel!
I am not going to get into the argument of to switch or not here. The point is your
fly line should be wound onto your fly reel with 'control,' not wildly flopping about.
Seriously, I watched one Saturday morning TV program with another one of those
'experts' do exactly what I described above. What really got me was the 'close-up'
of his reel as he did it. I actually watched as the loose line that he had pulled in was
whipped onto the reel in what would be a birds nest if the fish ever took off. It is
hard to believe these guys are out there filming when they can't get it right. The
worst part is this: You watch it and think they know what they are doing. Wrong!
Instead of twenty-five years experience; they have one years experience,
twenty-five times. They have 'always done it that way.' Sometimes little
things can make a big difference. ~ James Castwell
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