Fishing Victoria Forum

Sinsemilla wrote:

ncr1 wrote:Choosing Your Lever

Great posts mate. Loving it

What if you take braided line into consideration on a "soggy" rod?

Cheers, Anth

18kg of drag coming of the rod tip is still 18kg regardless of whether it is braid or mono. I would imagine that the only difference would be a greater level of shock absorption in the mono if the fish was aggressively head shaking or sharply changing direction. In these circumstances a 'soggy' rod would improve shock absorption when using braid.

Overall, the lack of stretch in braid improves line retrieval efficiency in comparison to mono.

Wolly Bugger wrote:Many years ago I worked with a fella who worked on a commercial fishing boat and they would pole tuna out of Eden and it would sometimes take two people to lift a fish on board.

My first "Game Fishing" trip was on board TruDee IV out of Eden in about 1985/6.
We caught and landed a 102kg Yellow Fin about 200 metres out from "the old sawmill jetty" on far side of the bay.
We also saw many larger fish in the bay area.

Out of curiosity, did you try "cubing" for fish?
I did many trips out from Bermagui in late 80's and we had a fair bit of success with this method.

Im a bit confused due to i cant work out a conclusion which type of rod is better.

Is a softer rod that bends from near the stripper roller better due to the fact you can apply more pressure when pumping up from the deep?

Or a stiffer rod so you apply more leverage when in a harness?

smile0784 wrote:Im a bit confused due to i cant work out a conclusion which type of rod is better.

Is a softer rod that bends from near the stripper roller better due to the fact you can apply more pressure when pumping up from the deep?

Or a stiffer rod so you apply more leverage when in a harness?

Think the softer rod will make the fight a little easier if the fish is deep as it will allow the angler to stay upright.

smile0784 wrote:Im a bit confused due to i cant work out a conclusion which type of rod is better.

Is a softer rod that bends from near the stripper roller better due to the fact you can apply more pressure when pumping up from the deep?

Or a stiffer rod so you apply more leverage when in a harness?

I took from it that there was no 'best' style of rod and it was up to the angler to decide which features suited the target species, type of fishing and personal preferences best

so much excellent info here thats its a big overload..
for average anglers like me who chase tuna once in a while, it will hardly be put into theory because of very limited fishing time spent on the water chasing tuna. by the time the fish is one every rule is broken hahaha..
but for the guys who do this regularly this is invaluable info. thanks for sharing mate..

Boxhead wrote:Out of curiosity, did you try "cubing" for fish?
I did many trips out from Bermagui in late 80's and we had a fair bit of success with this method.

I've had a few trips to Bermi cubing for yellowfin, but I've only had one go at cubing off Portland (got one hit, but missed the hook up). Cubing does work for southern bluefin as well - many of the NSW fisherman still use this technique when the SBT run happens along their coast. However, I'm not too sure why it hasn't taken off in Victoria. My feeling is that Portland carries more concentrated patches of bait and the tuna would be too distracted by these natural feasts rather than worrying about a cube or two passing by. And generally trolling lures is so effective that you don't have to bother worrying about the storage and smell of cubes on the boat.

smile0784 wrote:Im a bit confused due to i cant work out a conclusion which type of rod is better.

Is a softer rod that bends from near the stripper roller better due to the fact you can apply more pressure when pumping up from the deep?

Or a stiffer rod so you apply more leverage when in a harness?

If the rod had zero deflection a shorter rod with a longer reel seat will allow you to apply more pressure on the fish.

A rod with more flex has an shorter effective when it bends ie becomes shorter thus you can apply more pressure on the fish than the same size stiffer rod.

For fish that go down ie tuna a longer rod with more flex is better (easier to reach over the side of the boat and still apply lots of pressure) and fish that stay closer to the surface ie marlin a shorter rod with less flex tends to be better ( easier to set the hook into a hard bill and easier to gain line).

It makes a lot of sense when you see that game rods are often categorized as Tuna or Marlin rods, small differences optimised for each application.

4liters wrote:

smile0784 wrote:Im a bit confused due to i cant work out a conclusion which type of rod is better.

Is a softer rod that bends from near the stripper roller better due to the fact you can apply more pressure when pumping up from the deep?

Or a stiffer rod so you apply more leverage when in a harness?

I took from it that there was no 'best' style of rod and it was up to the angler to decide which features suited the target species, type of fishing and personal preferences best

I think your summary sums it up 4litres - there is no perfect rod design (as many rod manufacturers might suggest). You have to compromise somewhere. But the aspects of the rod design that you're willing to compromise upon is up to you. If being able to pull against the heaviest drag possible is important to the style of fishing you will be doing (and I've encouraged this style of heavy-drag fishing with Portland barrels), then look to shorter, softer rods that have greater leverage efficiency. Alternatively, if you are just happy keeping the drag at 1/3 the breaking strain of the line, then you might seek to increase your line retrieval efficiency with a longer, stiffer rod.

Marlin fishing, where the boat is often backed down to a fish jumping on the surface, doesn't often demand super-heavy drags, so you can get away with using stiffer rods. In addition, when fishing lighter line classes where the absolute maximum drag that you will ever be likely to use will still be well within your physical capabilities, then longer and stiffer rod designs are generally more suited.

However, when fishing with heavier line classes for big tuna (and perhaps swordfish or big blue marlin) that are stubbornly holding below the boat and are hard to budge, then a softer design will allow you to increase the total amount of drag (and hurt) that you apply to the fish, without compromising your posture and hurting yourself. Unfortunately, the game rod market place in Australia is currently dominated by stiffer, Tcurve-style designs and as a result, I believe that many gamefishos in this country completely underestimate how much extra drag can be exerted on big fish with more leverage-efficient rod designs and fighting techniques.

I believe game rods are one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated pieces of gamefishing equipment, and the information I've offered is to provide a different perspective (beyond mainstream advice) to what factors I consider to be the most important in game rod design. Think about it: if a particular rod design were able to reduce the load on the angler by 10-20kg, but still lift the same amount of weight as the other rod, wouldn't you want to know about that!? Yet why don't 'leverage efficiency' ratings ever exist within the marketing descriptions of game rods? Why don't people ask what the relative 'leverage efficiency' of a particular game rod is when they walk into a tackle shop? Isn't this similar to buying a car without knowing what the engine size is?