Striped Bass Fishing Lessons - the Strip Strike

Striped Bass Fishing Lessons - the Strip Strike Male: I want to show you a little trick on which you can—this is going to really increase your chances of catching fish. It’s called the strip strike. Make your cast out is stripping it in like this, stripping it in, stripping it in all this time you feel a fish strike. As soon as you feel him keep on stripping just give them keep stripping a couple of more times called the Strip Strike and you can do one long strip like this so you can just keep stripping a little bit just to jab that fly into the mouth. You’ll notice that because you have such a nice direct connection, it’s going to drop that right into his mouth so it’s called the strip strike. Just keep stripping like that. Then you have a line then you’re all set. Female: What about position of your rod tip that has been doing that? Male: Well you want to point it directly down low, yeah until it’s on that then we’re going to get into the next part. Now the nice thing about the two hand retrieve, you’re almost forced to do strips strike because look. You’re down like this when our fish strikes, you merely can’t go like that. It forces you into doing a strip strike. So it’s a really good way to get in habit of doing it that way. So now, we’ve struck the fish and everything is going great so far trying to think if I forgot anything. Let me just show you that another example of why the strip strike is so handy because this fish miss the fly so much and very aggressive. If you do a strip strike watch, Gwen is going to hit the fly and actually miss it, I feel him on there. The fish missesit so — Female: So you’re going back at it? Male: Right, goes out it. I strike him like this and she misses it. All the fly is going to do, the fly is just going to bounce about three feet in front of that fish and that fish, chances are is going to get very aggressive come back at again. I’ve had stripers hit the fly five, six times before they get actually strike. He’ll be stripping in like this and you feel. Now you know he’s there. They just come right back and it keep hitting. But if you go like that you’re going to miss everyone. You’ll get lucky every once in a while and hook them but chances are, you’re going to miss them. So the two hands retrieve is nice because you’re forced into actually striking the fish with the Strip Strike. Okay now we’ve done everything right so far, made our cast out. We’ve gotten our rod tip low. We have a lot of tension on. We’re going to do one hand retreat now. I’m going to strip in the fly in a fish is actually struck the fly. Keeps stripping in and give up the strip strike. Now he’s on the line. From this point on just like when we’re casting and everything else, tension is the name of the game. We have to keep tension on this fish, we have to have to a tight line the whole time and the way we do that is we keep our rod tip up. Relatively up high from this point on. So we’ve strip strike this fish, now here’s a little bit of a problem time. I’ve been stripping in and I have all this extra line on my basket and because we’re fishing the biggest salt water fish after I get them on the line, this fish is going to be going as far away from me as fast as he can. He wants to get away. He’s going to start pulling this line out. So you just broke up your first fish and the next fish you’re not going to do that. This time, no way am I going to do it. So, you strike the fish. Another bonefish came up and took it. He starts running, so you don’t want to clamp down on them so you just let go, right. Now, I’ll let go and I got all that slack in the line, he’d managed to get that fly off there. So chances let go of them and you can’t hold on to them for dear life. So you have to do something in between. You have to let them take line while still maintaining tension on that fly. Watch how I do it. I’m stripping it in, the striper of the bonefish has something comes up and I did the strip strike so it’s okay. I give my strip strike now he starts to run and watch what I do. I’m going to raise my rod tip up, let that line slide through my hands while maintaining tension and then he’s on the reel and you’re in business. Okay, you have to maintain tension on that line and let it get on the reel if you want to pull it off, while not holding too tight and not letting go completely. Now you notice what I did with my hand when the fish started to run. I’ve moved my hand way over here, now the reason why I did that is because I wanted to keep this line away from this reel and away from my body so I can minimize any kind of tangles. If I held my hand here and that fish start to running out that line might wrap around the reel, it could wrap around my belt back. Well I’ve had line wrap around the buttons on my shirt before, this fish pull amazingly fast and if you want to minimize any tangles you can have and the basket’s going to minimize 90% of your tangles. I mean if you’re out there fishing, you’re like this. You’re stripping on the ground and that fish starts running out and you’re so excited you don’t realize where your line is. All of a sudden you just realized it you’re stepping on it. That fish is going to break off. So a basket’s going to take care of most of your tangles but, if you can keep your hand clear and hold it up way over here, keep your rod up separated and as you like this. You’re going to minimize most of your tangles so this is really the time when you loose a lot of fish. Just when that fish starts running just keep tension on them, let them run if he wants too. Let them run, get those hopefully you won’t have a tangle. I didn’t have one there. Once she’s on the reel game is almost over because this reel is going to take care of most of that flight from my now on.