Several videos of Andy explaining his practice for his technique. Stu did start down and dirty and Andy took to the next level. I know of a record fish , 25 years ago, before the 210 record at the boat in 20 minutes. Homasassa. After the bs for billfish record he endured,set her free. Ifykuk.
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Mike the best visual of the rod angle would be a straight line from the fly line through the top half of the rod with the bend in the butt section of the rod. The other thing I like to do is get in the cockpit and walk backwards to move the fish versus all of the high rod pumping. Second never get the rod above a 45 degree angle. Actually 45 is to high frankly. This applies beside the boat also when you are trying to lift a fish short pumps until the rod is below horizontal with the water.
If you get a fish that stays under the boat you may need to move away or stomp on the deck to get it out of there and change the angle.
As @coconutgroves said if the roll or jump out the heat to them and roll them. Get that tail out of the water.
Finally I like to use more drag than most but I do think they pull more against a tight drag versus jumping themselves out.
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Best, non-technical, advice I give anglers for fighting tarpon is to fight them like you are willing to lose them.
I will, and have, broken peoples fish off due to fight time.
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As you mentioned, “once they jump, put the heat on them…when they get close…keep the head down-they get disoriented…that’s the time to turn them…”. CA Richardson taught me to “pull its head through its tail” at this point.
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People not knowing how to fight them on spin and fly is taking a toll on the population. Stop them or pop them. The fist bump after the pop them method doesn’t suck.
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It partially depends on your leader setup when it comes to drag pressure. If you Rolling a piece of straight 40-60lb set the drag wherever you want within reason. If your running a 15lb leader setup with bite yeah it matters, and it also matters how you set the hook on the fish to avoid break offs.
Once hooked your can fight a fish on 15 almost like 40-60 as most are lost on the initial set/surge/jumps.
Tournament anglers have a different mindset than recreational guys.
His fish fighting tips are spot on and I appreciate how much he has shred. One that gets lost on a lot of people newer to the game is that you want to pull them down in the water column mostly to try and stop them from rolling until they do get a roll in. If they roll close to the boat reel down on then as far as possible right after the roll, they are going to want to go down after the roll. When they do this step up on the casting platform and lift up as hard as possible and you will actually get them to blow the air they just grabbed out. It’s a really great tool and it takes it out of them quick when they can’t do what they want.
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Have you ever broke or pulled 16 on a scale?
You have to be easy with them on the bite but once you’re tight to them you can muscle them as hard as you like.
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I actually have not. I use to setup my casting rods the same way, but those drags rarely went over 5lbs. I can only image what 12lb would feel like on 9’ Fly rod.
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Mike 12 lbs is a lot! Get a 12lb kettle bell, put it on a pulley wheel, tie your leader to it and far enough back use the rod and drag to lift that kettle bell, once your the ball is about a foot above ground work your drag back until the bell lowers itself, voila 12 lbs of drag. Learn to pull that with the ass end of the rod. The learn that setting approximately on the reel.
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Or just tie a 24” piece of 16 pound tippet in between a butt section and a bite of like 30 or 40 pound mono and tie it to your trailer ball.
Try like hell to break it with some fly line out of the tip. You’ll be surprised. If it curly Qs somewhere you didn’t tie good enough knots.
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16lb a little less so but with 20lb you can do what ever you want to a 100lb tarpon.
I’m not an IGFA purist as I fish class tippet to an extra long bite tippet.
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I started Andy Mills technique about 2 years ago and I’ve found a lot more success using it. Using a weight with a pulley will blow your mind on how much you can pull on 16lb. I also pull straight on the fish much more than you would think is possible. I’ve also learned palming is the worst thing you can do…I’ve lost 2 this year doing it while being stupid. If the tarpon is on the smaller side I’ll easily pinch my line with my forefinger on the cork, but the larger ones I’ve learned palming isn’t ideal. I’ve had the best tarpon season of my life this year, I’d guess over 30 so far since April and we didn’t fish May. The big tournament guys will mark their drags with paint for specific drag settings(lbs) which I’ve been meaning to do so I can be more consistent and not trying to “guess” at it. There’s some great videos with Andy showing you how to do it.
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