Читать книгу Fishing For Dummies - Greg Schwipps - Страница 30

When a fish strikes your bait, fly or lure, the first thing you have to do is set the hook. This refers to the act of imbedding the hook into the mouth of the fish. Many hooksets involve lifting the rod sharply overhead, using the flex of the rod to drive the hook or hooks into the fish’s mouth. When using circle hooks, the fish simply swims away until the rod bends deeply toward the fish — then the circle hook rotates around the corner of the fish’s mouth and the bend of the rod drives the hook home. In fly fishing, with many stripers, tarpon, big trout, and redfish, lifting the rod will pull the fly out of the fish’s mouth. So you sometimes need to swipe sideways rather than lifting.

After a fish is hooked, you have to fight the fish to the shore or boat, and this means controlling the ensuing struggle enough that the fish cannot wrap the line around a snag or do a number of other things to free itself. This is covered completely in Chapter 18, but you should always strive to keep the rod tip up, using the flex of the rod to maintain a tight line and keep the hook firmly planted in the fish’s mouth.