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Playing fish

It's not just pricking fish that is important its landing them:

• Make contact with your flies as soon as they hit the water and maintain contact with your fly or team of flies at all times. Slackness in leaders will give fish time to spit the fly without you even being aware they have mouthed it.
• Don't let any loose line between you and the fish.
• If you feel or see a change in the retrieve or the passage of the flies, or intuitively think there is a fish there - strike.
• Try flip striking, strip striking or striking sideways particularly on small fish and fish that take the fly early in the retrieve.
• Try to remembers to double strip strike. This is the most effective way of setting the hook.
• Fight the fish to the side. Particularly with small fish and rainbows so they don't come out of the water.
• Don't put more pressure on a fish than your rig will handle.
• Don't land fish too "green". Play them out as much as necessary.
• Practice you landing net technique

Landing fish

Perhaps the one aspect of catching fish that receives the least attention is netting fish. Most people just assume that by the time they get the fish to the net it's "all over red rover". It is some times but particularly when your fishing barbless or when fishing to smaller fish there may be more to it than just that.

If you want to measure more fish you should do two things:

Practice your netting skills from boats, lake and river banks and when wading rivers and lakes. Think about it. If you actually netted all the fish you actually lost in the last year how many extra fish would that have been.

Set your net up so that it actually works for you. I have described my set up below.
I have attached a photo of how I have my net set up to cover both river and lake fishing. As you can see I have replace the handle with a handle that has 3 sections that screw together. As shown it is ideal for river fishing and with the extra piece inserted it is 1.2m for boat fishing.

When river fishing I have a stretch lanyard which is 1.7 meters long with thumb clips at each end. I thread the lanyard through the belt loops on my waders attach one end to the net onto a ring which I have incorporated in the net just where the handle meets the net itself and the other end to the lanyard to the lanyard itself.

I also have a clip on the top of the net and the other half on the back of my fly vest. When you clip the net onto the back of the fly vest its out of the way. This is particularly handy when moving along river banks or making your way across fast water. When your fishing you can give a tug o the net to release it and it will just lay in the water off to your side. When your ready to land the fish just reach down to access the net . . . it's always there and you wont loose it.

A	I have attached a photo of how I have my net set up to cover both river and lake fishing. As you can see I have replaced the handle with a handle that has 3 sections that screw together. As shown it is ideal for river fishing and with the extra piece inserted it is 1.2m for boat fishing. The screw together handle I found came on a household mop and cost just $12. It took about half an hour to make one cut, drill one hole and give it a coat of dull olive paint to convert it for use on my net and to fit it.

B	When river fishing I have a stretch lanyard which is 1.7 meters long with thumb clips at each end. I thread the lanyard through the belt loops on my waders attach one end to the net onto a ring which I have incorporated in the net just where the handle meets the net itself and the other end to the lanyard to the lanyard itself.

C	I also have a clip on the top of the net and the other half on the back of my fly vest. When you clip the net onto the back of the fly vest its out of the way. This is particularly handy when moving along river banks or making your way across fast water. When your fishing you can give a tug on the net to release it and it will just lay in the water off to your side, attached to you by the lanyard. When your ready to land the fish just reach down to access the net . . . it's always there and you wont loose it.

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