Originally Posted by
vet
Hello Lyndon, great post above. How does all this improvement in reaction time methods explain why my rod holders rarely miss a strike and yet the rod that I am holding regularly does, afterall my rod holders don't strike at all but they have a better hook up rate than a hand held rod. I'm really unsure as to whether striking has any effect on hookup rate at all. If you hold your rod firmly so that when a strike comes the rod bends and recoils itself I think this is a bigger factor in hooking a fish. I don't think our reflexes will ever be fast enough to make any difference at all. How many times have we had a double tap bite from small barra and still not reacted fast enough to hook them, after all the barra has inhaled lure, spat it out and inhaled it again before you can even blink. So I believe a barra hooks itself.
Having said that though, your advice as usual is very good. Everything you have said will improve your reaction times, alertness etc so that you can better respond to your environment. Being alert and faster can't hurt your chances in any way and it may give you an edge, so anyone serious about barra fishing can only benefit from doing what you have suggested.
good advice, scott.
ps. This post highlights all the things we did wrong on last saturday's fishing trip.
The only thing we did right was eating breakfast. Got on the water at monduran at 8am, fished all day till 9pm, sustained by 2 sandwiches and 4 rums, had 15 bites for 9 hookups and 6 landed, then drove back to awoonga, arrive 11pm, start fishing, bite not happening , running low on coke so were having half strength coke and rum( drank a bottle of rum with only 3 cans of coke between 2 of us), were relatively hammered, hungry and tired by 4am, then I got a bite, nearly fell out of boat, reflexes so slow, fish hooked itself and somehow landed a 110cm barra. Sometimes you were just destined to land that fish.
cheers scott.