Ever Spooled and Won
 

I've been spooled to the knot and held (with a little hand pressure on the line) to turn a fish and won the battle. Any one else share this experience?

Not on a Striper but on a Salmon shore fishing Lake Ontario. Epic night hooked a brute that took me down 1/2 mile of beach spooled to the knot. Held it and played tug o war for a while and won. 37 lbs back on the beach.

nope...
 

the knot always broke....

what knot are you usin at the spool ?

too big and you get a hump of line over it....

came within just a few wraps in the hog island rip, fish bottomed out a chatilion 50# and was released.

i never have but a buddy i was fishing with last year became a panicy pete and cupped the spool only to hear..................... TINK

That coulda been a record :)

Getting spooled by a Striped Bass means something went very wrong.

I'm thinking the same thing. Seems odd...

Yes, one of the few risks when leaving your rod in a sand spike is being distracted an having a fish hit. I had my drag somewhat loose and by the time I saw a fish was on, the line pulled from the reel, I ran like a bat out of hell into the water, got the line tangled around my feet, but was able to thread it back down the rod and bring in a that nights bluefish dinner.

Agreed. I've never had a bass that even came close to taking me down to the knot--not even in the Canal. It can happen, but it means you made an error in judgment to start with--fishing light tackle in an inappropriate place, fishing with too loose a drag, losing some line and not respooling or switching to a spare spool, not walking downcurrent if you have space to do so--or because of your drag failing entirely and your reel being almost in freespool as a result. You can almost always stop a bass in its tracks using the stretch and drag of 150 yards of 25# and up mono between you and the fish, and with 65# braid and the right rod, you can stop that bass from even getting up a head of steam. I've seen guys like Slip and J Powers bring 40 pounders to the rocks in the Canal in less than 5 minutes. I've done it with a bunch of 30s, even before I started fishing braid on a 1209 meatstick. Those fish took maybe 20 yards of line the whole fight.

The "unstoppable" is almost always something other than a bass. Usually a tuna.

In my case, I was fishing schoolies with a schoolie rod/reel set-up and hooked into a large that had different ideas about being caught.

Also, there are specific knots to use for attaching the line to your spool.

ditto they would get tired first with the right amount of drag on the reel..02

yeah, I guess being under-gunned would do it. It's amazing the light tackle I sometimes see guys using out there.. it's like, if a 50 hits you're screwed! always gotta be ready ya know?
Let me qualify this by mentioning that I would most likely be screwed if a 50 hit, but it wouldn't be because of my tackle!

yeah that's my question.... what's the right one or best one?
whats the name...
anybody chime in...

thanks in advance.

I use a Uni-knot. It should hold if you get run down to it--not that I ever expect to.

Fact of the matter is, in the Canal, if you let a fish get that much out of control, she's going to hang you up on the bottom long before she runs you down to the knot :humpty:

If your getting spooled to the knot you may want to leave a few wraps of line by holding the spool. The very little of what is left of mono may act as a shock absorber due to the stretch properties of mono. This "give" could be the difference between a snap off or not.

it means something went very right. Using very light tackle is much more exciting than those heavy rods that tow fish to the boat. Its all a matter of opinion I guess.

not it. :eyes:

nope but i know two people that should go fishing together so they can lose all the tackle they want :tooth:

Very light tackle may be exciting but the lengthy fight puts fish under tremendous physiological strain. Enzymes build up in thier blood from over exertion and enter the bloodstream that feeds the muscles. No matter how long you spend reviving the fish and its swims away half heartedly, chances are overwhelming that it will not recover and die within hours or days from the damage to the muscle mass.

I fish ten pound braid for bass from my skiff on the flats and have taken a quite a few large fish over the years with no problems and usually in short order without the aid of motor etc. Anything under ten pound is really irresponsible in terms of catch and release and resource protection. Cheap thrills at the fish's cost for record or notoriety only. If you have no qualms killling for the thrill of it than 2,4,6 and 8 pound tackle is the way to go.

I have 25#mono in most everything I own. I drag them in and drop them back...unless they get away first....:bshake: :humpty:

Agreed ... there are places and situations where light tackle will work okay for landing larger fish, but you also need the ability to land it as quickly as possible ... as the fish will fight themselves to death ... lighter gear in a lighter boat is okay as the drag of the skiff, kayak, canoe can help to tire the fish out ... but you also have to know how and when to put pressure on the fish to get it to the boat quickly ...

... but always favor heavier gear to subdue larger fish quickly, as they are far too valuable to waste on the fun of wearing them down on light gear.

I think it's been documented that waste products can actually begin to cook the muscle mass of some tunoids during a long fight. Tunoids are basically all red muscle mass.

It's a real boot in the rear to catch an albie on light tackle, but very few of those fish survive a release. Most people won't eat one, so it's a total waste of a good, noble fish. I stopped chasing albies on the Vineyard long before they took them out of the daily prize structure in the Derby.

I can relate one instance that I witnessed--one day, we were fishing at Pogue Light for blues, using fairly heavy tackle. A friend from CT hooked a very small albie. Maybe 4-5 pounds. He was using 20# test on a medium 9' rod. From hook up to release, the fish was probably on the line for less than 5 minutes. He grabbed the tail, unhooked it, gave it a few back and forth passes to get water flowing over its gills, and let go. It swam 10' and sank right to the bottom, and stayed there :(

i remember once
 

this friend and i were out rabbit hunting...

so we see one and are about to shoot

but it froze solid as if to camouflage itself
by becoming perfectly motionless
or so we thought....

we stalked it carefully pointing the
shotguns but never firing a shot

as we got to within 3 feet of it
the rabbit keeled over and died.
we had scared it to death.

i have seen the same thing
happen to fish.

Well, this may be true for bass, I don't know, but not all species. they did some research on Blue sharks and found them to rejuvinate in a short amount of time, even after extended battles. Personally, I use 20 lb test but with reels that don't have large amounts of drag. All my fish are landed in the shortest amount of time possible, many times having to turn the boat around or backing down on it, in order to not get spooled. I'd much rather "cheat" by moving the boat then seeing a nice fish swim away with all that line, pretty much killing it slowly and for nothing.

For what its worth I had a close experience with being spooled but it was a very unique set of circumstances that made it happen. I was using a penn 704 with a heavy 10 foot stick. 704s don't hold a lot of line to begin with so I probably had 180 yards or so of 20 lb flourescent blue stren with about another 30 yards of 30 lb pink ande as backing.
I hit a fish on the end of a long cast with a loaded needle so I had a good amount of line out on the cast. The sweep in this particular spot was really pushing with a big sea. I hooked up and the bass took huge amounts of line - at one point I was well into my pink ande with a blood knot between me and the fish. I lucked out and landed the bass but not without some anxious moments - it was the last time I would use backing on a 704 to save some money.

DZ

spooled
 

three years ago i was fishing bahai honda st park (marathon in the florida keys) under the bridge. i hooked up on a nice tarpon w/ a 20# spinning outfit and in the blink of an eye i can see the bottom of the spool. the captain was fumbling w/ the glouster ball and anchor line and i get to the bow of this boat and i'm living on stretch. the cap starts the boat and saves the day. while chasing down this tarpon a hammerhead shows up and we have to let the fish run from the shark. we finally loose the shark and bring the fish boatside, capt says 150# maybe more. my first silver king and not my last i hope.

the question was "ever been spooled and won?", right? no, cow tamer. i, myself, have not. by the way, use an arbor knot to tie your line to the spool.

4:15 am
 

comparing uni to an arbor....

niko, that sounds awsome. thats still on my to do list.

on a side note. My new little nephew is named Nikko also. he's about a week old now.

I always start with super light but will switch up to heavier tackle once I have my dinner in the boat. There is nothing better than a nice long battle with a fish, even if you have to chase it down which in my opinion is even better. Thats why I fish. I always have a selection to choose from and when I am tossing them back i try to get them in asap. For the table I take my time and enjoy, I also don't think you'll loose them if you do it that way.

I agree that fishing 6lb test and whaling fish all day is bad practice.