October 13, 2011
By Bruce Chard
When hooked up in a battle with a big poon breaking the confidence of that fish is a big step towards landing him quickly. Landing a fish quickly is good for both the angler and the fish. Shorter fights for big tarpon increase their survival and recovery rate after a life struggling battle with an angler.
One way to start breaking the confidence of a tarpon in the heat of the battle is to apply extra pressure to the fish every chance you get. One of the best times to do this is when a fish jumps.
Timing the jump just right, the angler can put accesive pressure on a jumping tarpon right at the peak of the tarpons jump. At this critical time of the jump the fish has expended a ton of energy getting out of the water. The fish's movement upward out of the water has stopped and for a split second the fish will have what I call hang time. The time between when the upward movement of the jumping tarpon actually stops and the fish starts to fall back towards the water. At this time applying a dramatic increase of pressure will help to bring pull the fish back down at a faster more rate than normal. This action will cause the fish to enter the water column awkwardly and aggressively taking the fish an extra second or two to regain direction and breaking down the fish's confidence. Continuous pressure like this will give the tarpon no choice but to give in early!
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