Problems with leverage
To say that we use fishing rods rather than handlines to catch fish because
rods help us to cast the tackle out and to control it, may seem like stating
the obvious.
It is not until you try fishing with one of the modern rod and reel outfits
where the rod may be 20 feet long that you realise that, due to the effect
of leverage, fishing rods have the effect of favouring the fish as it
tries to escape and handicapping the angler.
As a boy I caught lots of fish on handlines and I learned that a fish
of around one pound weight, that can put a bend in a rod and need a bit
of pressure to land, can be hauled in on a handline without you feeling
much resistance at all. The longer the rod the more advantage the fish
has.
Having fished with a 20-foot rod quite a lot I have learned that there
are surprising disadvantages to these rods.
Landing small fish is tricky because you have to let line out before you
can land the fish instead of using the reel to shorten line when a fish
is ready for landing. Hooking a big fish on a 20-foot rod is alarming
though.
You have to put a great deal of pressure on your tackle to exert more
than a very slight pull on the fish, and it takes longer to land a decent-sized
fish than it does with a shorter rod.
Last year after catching several small-to-medium-sized fish on the long
rod I hooked what I knew to be grass carp of about 30lbs weight.
When the fish finally shed the hook I had tried to control it for over
40 minutes and my arm was aching a lot.
This is not the case when modern anglers use fishing poles of very great
length indeed because the fish is controlled by unshipping segments of
the rod when necessary to bring the fish under control for landing.
You cannot do this when fishing conventionally with rod and reel.
I wonder how many readers watched a chat show on television recently when
a famous chef was being interviewed, telling us how he had struggled to
run a restaurant in his younger days the chef told us that he and a relative
used to visit a trout fishery and pay for a cheap permit that allowed
them to kill and take home just two trout.
The chef bragged that he used to fish maggot-baited flies when nobody
was watching, and then stuff lots of extra trout in the voluminous pockets
of his coat. Surely this was stealing every bit as much as it would be
if his customers stole items from his restaurant?