Neilio

I fished a match at the weekend and watched quite a few of the regulars hand-lining.
By this I saw them play the fish on the pole, ship back to the tip of the pole and grab the elastic all the way to the line and then land the fish. This did seem to be a very quick way to land fish, but couldnt help thinking all was not right. I was proved right when an angler opposite grabbed the elastic and the fish got its second wind and shot off. The hook pulled and the rig shot back just missing his face. He was lucky this time, but how many chances should you take??
I am not one to criticize many angling methods, but I wont be landing fish like that for sure.

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Sponduke

I'm sure there was a thread about this before, is it not illegal to handle the elastic or line as this is classed as freelining?

matt6900

its not illegal but many places do ban the method! i personally only hand line if i know they are foul hooked, and even then i make sure i have my hands down low, i would only then touch the elasic if there is only a couple of foot out at most, they do seem to fight a lot less!

used to do this all the time at manor farm when fishing with out a float shallow no fear of a float or shott flying back but it soon got banned!

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Matt Smith
Mosella

justin case

I made a thread about this sometime back and knowing what match you was on I have seen it there alot also

it sure is fast but something I cant bring myself to do, It really annoys me getting done on speed by this method, it is against NFA rules but not against the local lake rules despite the lake having other barmy rules that dont make sense.

And I bet you was talking about Fred opposite you on sunday he does it all the time I heard that Ken the l;ake owner stopped doing this after his hand became infected after a carbon stem float embedded itrself in it. I guess some people need to learn the hard way before they will stop.

Just to take up Matts point I have in the past had to hand line a couple of fish hoked in the tail as it was near impossible to get the fish in using conventional methoids both were doubles and both on the lake you are talking about I think I would still be playing them now without doing so and my guess is this option was probably less stressfull to the fish

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Life at the bottom A noobs guide (My Blog, Paul Law)

Neilio

Surely some type of pulla kit could be used to combat the risk of injury.
I have modified the bung in my top kits so I can grab and pull on super stretchy bungee when needed.

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