People often ask me the secret to landing big barra on such a consistent basis.
Certainly being on the water day in day out helps. But it truly is the little things that make ALL the difference.
I do a lot of behind the scenes maintenance, but I also use really simple practices that you can easily integrate into your fishing routine to ensure all the hard work hooking a big fish actually pays off.
In part one of this three part series I am going to be talking about looking after your guides and line rollers.
Firstly. Look after your guides.
More often than not when I pull up at the boat ramp I see a ton of people’s rods with fish hooks and trebles hooked through the guides.
Of course we do this primarily for safety and convenience, but over time this scratches your guide and these tiny scratches will scour your line, especially braided line, as it runs in and out fighting a big fish.
The easiest way to avoid this is to secure your fishing hook or lure to the guide post/frame rather than the ceramic part of the fishing rod guide. Easy!
Alternatively some fishing rods have a little metal hook holder and you can simply hook your trebles in there. Yes it is a bit more fiddly, but it is very much worth it.
Secondly, maintain your line rollers.
It takes so much effort to find big fish these days and entice them to bite, the last thing you want is line failure.
Even with new line, if your line roller isn’t spinning like a dream, you are placing additional strain on your line… Nek minut… Gone!
Now as we know after every plane crash comes the investigation and yep… chances are it was some kind of gear or mechanical failure. It only takes a moment to apply some lubricant to the roller and you will solve this problem completely.
To give you an idea how important this is, I check each and every one of my rollers before every charter and lubricate as necessary.
For a quick demo on how I keep my fishing rod guides and fishing reel line rollers in tip top condition, watch the short video below.
In the next installment of this three part series I will be looking at leader size and how you can improve catches by using the most appropriate leader for your fishing techniques. If any of you have a great story about the one that got away please feel free to share it in the comments below.
Catch you on the water! Cheers Ryan
