I am in for the fight, but also for the chanse to eat one. There are many other fish in sweden that are real fighters, but I do not like to eat them. I only catch fish I can eat, but release most of them.
Do fisherman fishing Iceland not know how to properly fight a fish on a rod? I never see anyone applying SIDE pressure to the rod but rather always holding the rod straight and high. Side pressure is vital since it transfers power to the butt of the rod (the most resistant) and it enables you to guide and tire the fish much quicker instead of just holding the rod right in front of your nose. That is the worst way to fight a fish since you are then fighting it with your rod tip and takes forever to bring the fish in. It baffles me when I watch these videos. "Keep that rod high" is the dumbest thing guides advise their clients to do. SIDE PRESSURE always.
I completely agree with you, in fact I did a whole video on how to fight big fish on a fly rod. The only exceptions to this are when you have a large amount of exposed coral or laval rock where you need to keep a high rod angle to prevent being cut…. In Iceland that is often the case.
