Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing Warped reel from big fish, line stretch

Discovered something new last week while catching humpie salmon on my fly rod and large capacity cheap Martin reel. After half a dozen or so fish, playing them from the reel, the spool started rubbing and then grinding against one side of the reel frame for about a third of each turn. I thought that I had warped the spool or reel frame somehow, but when I pulled off the flyline and some backing to work on it, the warp was gone. I reeled the line back onto the spool and it is fine. Since I've had the same thing happen with salt water casting reels and mono line, I recognized what happened, just didn't know fly line would cause it.

Playing a heavy, strong fish, you reel in line under pressure, which stretches it and reduces the line diameter. Once on the spool, the line relaxes, expanding its diameter to normal size again. With many wraps on the spool, expanding the diameter of the line puts enough pressure on the spool to push out the sides and warp it enough to rub the reel frame or even lock up the spool from turning.

My solution so far has been to play the fish, after the initial runs, by stripping in from two feet to several feet of line. Then I hold the line to the fish taut with the rod hand, while reeling in the slack, unstretched line with the other. That way I am not reeling tight, stretched line directly onto the reel. With fish big enough to cut fingers with the line if it gets wrapped around them, I don't like to have loose line stripped in so I reel up the slack line often, usually every pull or two.

If the fish bolts it is easy to slip two to four feet of slack line through so that you cushion the jolt when line starts coming off of the reel. With ten feet or more of line lying or floating around my feet, whipping loops as it zips out, the line too often will tangle or loop around reel handle, finger or wader buckle and snap off the fish. So I play the running fish from the reel when he is taking line, but strip in line to bring him back, reeling up the slack after each pull. IMO a fly rod is the most fun way to present a lure and take a strike, and the most inefficient tool for playing a large fish once hooked.

Sockeye are really fun on a fly rod. A guy next to me caught a 20 lb. chinook on a fly rod last week.

Hey, Oka, wish I had your problem. I guess it's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Have fun ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I agree about the fun part. Sounds like your having plenty of it. I disagree about the most inefficient part. What weight rod are you using? This makes a huge difference. Also, high quality gear will really make a difference. You need a 8-10 wt rod with some backbone to it. You'll be able to turn those hawgs then.

KY,I'm just experimenting and learning. I'm sure most of what I posted here is old info to long time fly fishermen. I'm using an older graphite Phleuger rod that says 8/9 weight. Light weight sweet rod, nine feet long.
For salmon, I keep experimenting with lines. This year I've been using a sinking tip line of unknown weight (I found it on a reel lying in the middle of a logging road). I'd guess it is a seven weight, maybe six. I added about 3 or four feet of lead core trolling line to the tip, and then a leader of cheap monofil 8 or 10 lb. test. It is sweet to cast, sinks quick and deep and isn't bad to pick up out of the water for the next cast. I'll have to admit that the majority of the humpies are foul hooked. A nine lb. male hooked at the front of his hump is like hooking a minature buffalo or brahma bull in the same spot. The ones hooked in the mouth fight only 1/3 as long.

Sometimes I fish smooth flowing water of moderate speed, other times a ripping torrent with whitewater patches where current is a powerful force even when the fish tires. At times thee are so many fish that if I paddle my kayak, I hit fish with the paddle. With a spin rig one evening last month, I hooked a fish in a new pool. He ripped out about 40 feet of line and came off. I started to reel and there he was again, so I thought he had turned my way and I'd just caught up. That fish ripped out line and came off, then suddenly tore out more line. I realized that there were so many fish in the pool that when the bent rod snapped straight when a fish came off, that the jerk of the line was snagging the hook into another salmon. It wasn't one fish but several in succession. Yes, it is fun, though I don't care much for humpies as table fare so haven't kept any since three bright ones fair hooked in the mouth when they first came in the river. I've only fished for them three evenings in six weeks, and won't bother them any more as they are into spawning.

This year the humpies are huge, much larger than average. I started fishing for sockeye just to get some experience handling larger fish on a fly rod (about a six lb. trout was my previous biggest on a fly rod). My opinion of ease of fighting a fish is purely personal. Compared to a level wind type bait casting reel set up the rod 14 inches or so from the butt end, a fly rod and reel is relatively awkward to me and slower to retrieve line (maybe I should try a $500 multiplier reel :-) Spin gear is somewhere in between, easy and fun to cast, fun to play small and medium fish (through steelhead size) but gets ever less "efficient" and sure of landing the fish as fish size goes up. Therefore I don't fly fish for salmon when near other fishermen, or fishing from a boat with non-fly fishers. It takes longer to land the fish on a fly rod and messes up their fishing for much longer than if I whip the fish quickly on a bait caster.

Kind of a long meandering post. Thought some of this might inerest folks who don't live near salmon, or who want to try them on a fly rod.

Okanagan: The problem you are having occurs most often when using braided nylon backing or monofilament. Too much stretch in nylon. Replace it with braided dacron backing if that is the case as it has very little stretch. Some reels just aren't solid enough to begin with as well.

Dean river chinooks and steelhead, Thompson steelhead have never caused that problem for me when using braided dacron.
Dacron is also much more age and rot resistant than nylon.

FWIW

Okanogan
As a very long-time salmon fly fisherman, I believe the fly rod is the most effective way to control a salmon... I use both direct and muliplier reels for them of adequate size. My wife caught a 65# king on fly tackle in heavy water some years back... she knows what she is doing...

Reds, sockeyes to those that do not know what to call them, <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> are my favorite fly fishing target.
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Had lots of problems with fly reels warping by using to much mono and not enough dacron backing.

Sitka Deer, fascinating that you can control a salmon best on a flyrod. Whooee, 65 lb. king on a fly rod is doing something! Was your wife in a boat? Can you describe what you do/how you play a fish? Wish I could come along and watch you land a good one. I don't doubt that you prefer a fly rod to handle big fish, just haven't discovered that for myself. Some of my struggle with big fish on a fly rod has to be technique, it can't all be quality of gear. I think my light 9 weight rod is fine, and I like it as well as any I've handled. The reel is a single action exposed rim that I palm for more drag and that hasn't been a problem either outside of the warping I mentioned and have solved. It has dacron backing now.

With the fly reel down at the butt end of the rod, all of the power leverage favours the fish. So far at least, with the techniques I'm using, I have to apply far more effort with a fly rod to put the same pressure on a fish that I can do with less effort on a bait casting set-up. Once in awhile I put the butt end of the fly rod in my belly and grip the rod with non-reel hand a couple of feet higher, above the cork handle. That gains me a huge power leverage increase but I don't want to put too much strain on the rod so go easy when I do that. Instead of always holding the rod high, which puts lift on the fish, I lower the rod tip sideways to put maximum sideways pressure on the fish and force it to swim against side pressure as well as some lift to stay out there. Golly it is fun. I confess I catch my meat supply with a baitcaster, then go at it with fly rod, etc.

Okanogan
She was on the shore and actually fishing for reds with an old Fenwick 9' #9 and a Hardy Husky (direct drive) and while the fish made some runs she was able to stay up with it and turn it back to shore each time.

All of my screaming at her and her fish likely made the difference <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I seldom pull sideways as you describe to subdue a big fish, but much prefer altitude on the rod tip. The closer to the surface the fish is the less water resistance on the line YOU must fight.

When you are anchored to the Earth everything out there on the end of the rod must be fought by you. Keep the fish near the surface and he will run out of gas far faster because he is pulling against the whole rod. It also makes it easier to turn them when they head toward the sticks.

Pull sideways and they just plane and no moves by you will change that. Straight up and they start turning a bit and have to fight that and so get far more active against the directed force and that wears them down fast.

I have had many people suggest that my logis was wrong because you are lifting the weight of the fish when lifting up... but the fish weighs nothing, nada, zip in water because it is bouyant.
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Sitka Deer, very astute point about line drag, especially in a river, and especially with fly line. It makes sense to keep as much line out of the water as possible in that case. Thanks. I learned something. I'm not convinced for all situations, however. I haven't caught very many kings from shore on a river so have little experience. In salt water from a boat, in shallow rivers with sockeye and fine diameter super lines, there are times when the side pull seems to wear them out pronto compared to lift pressure. If the fish is out very far it isn't a huge change in angle anyway. I suspect it depends on depth and speed of water, how deep the fish is under the surface, etc. I shall finesses them accordingly, and keep my fly line high.