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Fly fishing is a sport dedicated to the preservation of wild trout and their aquatic environments. Most fly fishers adhere to Catch and Release as if it were a religion - which it should be - and practice the use of barbless hooks with the fervor of a zealot. All of this is well and good. The more anglers converted to the practice of safe catch and release, the better the future of wild trout everywhere.
What many fly fishers don’t practice though is landing a trout quickly once it is hooked. As a guide and outfitter, I have witnessed many anglers take up to 30 minutes to land a trout on light tippet. While these anglers might think this is sporting and less fatiguing on the trout, the effect is just the opposite. Therefore, many guides advocate and employ the "Five minute rule" when on the waters with clients. What is the "Five minute rule"? Simply, it is putting pressure on the trout and bringing it to hand within five minutes of being hooked. To play the trout to exhaustion is the same as killing it. Once released, the trout might swim away, but this is a fright response, not necessarily the sign of a vigorous, unstressed trout. What the angler doesn’t always see is the trout swimming to safety behind a rock or submerged tree to hide, then cramp up, roll over and die. Unfortunately, this scenario is played out day after day, time after time, with no thought given to the loss of a wild trout, or the cumulative impact to the fishery, particularly if the trout played too long was a mature, viable fish.
Think about this for a moment. If tarpon guides insist that an 80 pound tarpon must be to the side of the boat inside of 20 minutes, why can’t a trout fisherman land an average-sized trout in five minutes? The reasons are many, but the most prevalent reason is because the loss of a fly that costs less than two bucks becomes more valuable than the trout, in most instances. The other excuse used is, "I don’t want to break my tippet!"
No one likes to catch fish, trout or tarpon, more than yours truly. I have had the piscatorial affliction since childhood some four decades ago now. Catch and release methods made sense to me for two reasons. One, I hated to eat trout after a while. The taste of fried trout in corn meal is still something my taste buds can call to mind with nothing more mentioned than the word, cook. Secondly, and most important, is that a wild trout is truly a resource too precious and valuable to be caught one time. To kill one purposely or inadvertently by over-playing the fish is the unforgivable sin.
So, what does an angler do? When guiding or fishing alone, I use the rod like a lever. Simply put, I set the hook, lean the rod over and lean into it like it was a telephone pole. Playing a trout with the rod tip up and not using the full length and spring of the rod might look good, but it is definitely the wrong way to bring a trout to hand quickly. Once the trout is hooked, LEAN into your fly rod - hard! This means you drop the rod tip to the side, then turn your hips away from the running direction of the trout. Your tippet usually survives the strain and the trout is landed so quickly there is no way it has been tired to exhaustion. If you lose the trout in the battle, so what? Weren’t you going to release it anyway? The same logic applies to the breakage of tippet and the loss of a fly.
If you do all of the above and the trout still won’t come to the net, break it off! The salvation of the trout outweighs any disappoint you might feel at the loss of the fish. Once practiced, the mental process of landing a trout quickly will take the place of the above disappointment. It is the same process most of us followed when the practice of Catch and Release first began. Remember how painful it was the first time we watched a trout swim away after being landed? Be a sport and get into the habit of landing your trout in the future using the ‘Five Minute Rule.’
Tim Wade
http://www.northforkanglers.com |
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