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Side pressure puts real leverage on a fish. It’s where control begins and power originates. All the other skills before this one set us up to maximize side pressure, with the right angles and a great plan for landing the trout of a lifetime.
I think the opposite of side pressure is upward pressure, or pulling up with the rod tip, and we don’t want to fight the fish at the surface. So while side pressure can keep the fish lower in the water column, upward pressure brings a trout to the top, often way too soon.
So with a low rod angle, pulling to the side as much as possible, we force the trout to fight not just the current pushing downstream in its face, but also our constant pressure to the side. A trout wants to hold the current that it’s in, and by pulling sideways, the trout has to work against that pressure to stay in its current. And nothing wears a trout down quicker.
My friends Matt Grobe and Bill Dell join me for a deep dive into real side pressure.
Here’s the Episode List for Season 20
1. The Hook Set and What Comes First
2. Where to Fight Them (Water Column and More)
3. Fight Them Fast (You Pull or They Pull – Work With a Trout)
4. The Fighting Position
5. Side Pressure
6. The Last Ten Feet (The Finishing Moves)
7. Wrap Up (With Stories)
Resources
CATEGORY: Troutbitten | Catch and Release Safely
CATEGORY | Troutbitten | Fighting Fish
ARTICLE | Troutbitten | Side Pressure – What It Is and How to Use It
VIDEO | Troutbitten | The Casting, Drifting and Fighting Position – It’s All the Same
PODCAST: Troutbitten | How to Handle a Trout
ARTICLE: Troutbitten | Are We Taking the Safety of Trout Too Far?
READ: Troutbitten | Work With a Trout and Not Against It
ARTICLE: Troutbitten | Fight Fish Fast
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Fish hard, friends.
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Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
The physics of fighting big fish involves understanding the flyrod as a third-class lever and the much more complex and continuously changing, three-dimensional force vectors that come into play when fighting a moving fish with a moving flyrod and a hopefully, moving angler.
The flyrod is a third-class lever that acts to increase speed and range of motion/distance.
A flyrod increases the speed of your wrist/arm movement – and increases the distance your wrist/arm travel. This form of mechanical advantage takes up slack and does so at a greater speed than you could produce without the rod (lever) – which helps set the hook.
Subsequently, flyrods as third-class levers also act to decrease the applied force of the user. The mechanical advantage of reducing force helps prevent breakoffs on the hook set – especially with light, 5X to 7X tippet.
The maximum amount of pulling force (tension) an angler can exert on a fish is achieved by eliminating the rod – this is accomplished by pointing the rod in a close-to-horizontal position, directly at the fish. Tension applied by the reel (or by the hand if stripping), not the rod is no different than hand lining a hooked fish. This also explains why the strip-setting applies the greatest force but works best when there is a minimal amount of slack as is typically found in down and across streamer presentations.
As the flyrod moves from this near horizontal position to the vertical, the force applied decreases continuously as the rod angle increases from 0 degrees to 90 degrees. Translation: maximum force at the horizontal and minim force at the vertical position.
This is why rod tips (and mid-sections) are used to cast fly lines and set hooks with light tippet and/or a lot of slack line. The rod butt is the one section of a flyrod that applies fish-fighting force, which requires a very low rod angle to wherever the fish is during the fight.
Dom is correct in saying that side pressure at 90 degrees is the same amount of force as a vertical 90 degrees, but the advantage of side pressure is that the force is steering the fish rather than trying to lift it When steering a fish, you are tiring it by forcing it to use its swimming (tail) muscles as it fights against that side pressure – and steering it toward you and your net. Remember that fish can only swim in the direction that their head is facing.
You can learn a lot about fighting big fish by reading and watching tarpon and giant trevally anglers. Andy Mill is one of the best:
Andy Mill’s Fish Fighting Two Minute Masterclass – YouTube
Congrats on one of your best (and under-appreciated, under-covered) podcast topics.
Rick B does a great job of explaining the physics.
Another way to think about it is considering the angle between the line and the rod. If you point the rod directly at the fish, the angle between line and rod is 180 degrees. With the rod pointed straight up and the fish at ones feet, the angle is 0 degrees. As you decrease rod angle to from vertical towards horizontal, the angle between line and rod increases and that engages the butt section. Note also that at a given rod angle, a shorter rod increases the rod to line angle which engages more rod butt.