The Impossable to land Pike, then reel finaly broke T_T

[Autisticsrule]

My hand hurts so bad after my last fish fight i've had to stop playing, i was hunting for my frist Muskie and my hopes were high, i expected a good fight and brought my best X heavy- Legers and Match Rods with 25kg braid and 25kg titainium leaders with shiners and big hooks, But when i finaly caught a Pike, it became no longer funny after 2 in game hours past, and my hand was feeling the pain, but then fight only finished after over 6 game hours and my Golden Dlc Reel finaly Broke..... My hands hurt so bad my eyes water and i've had to stop playing for now. the Pike of which i am clear it was as i saw it jumping after i hooked it less than 20m away.. but the Fought like a Staem engine and no matter how many times i got it to about 50m away struggling to keep the tension when the line slacked into the blue often so bad i had to max drag and face backwards just to stop it slipping the hook like the preveous two did. but each time it then streamed out to over 100m and eventuraly ended up on the far side of the huge lake, behond the boats threading to spool my 200m line leangh.. but all the fight was wasted, as then the Reel which was full health when i started finaly broke under the constant presser, and it was gone, I'm a full grown man but this fish brought me to tears, my mouse hand hurts so bad i can barly type this... i'm going to have a break now and make a very strong coffee and stew on what just happened,
Perhaps some here can tell me what happened and what did i do wrong, and how next time can i catch that Pike Impossable? note : I dont know what breed of pike it was but i dare not believe that it was just a Northen pike, it was huge and fought impossable strong.

[Lenny Rat]

Give us all the info on your setup. Need specific model and weight capacities of your:

Rod
Reel
Line
Leader
Float
Bait

And any weights, sinkers, or other pertinent data.. I am sure we can help. It sounds like perhaps the reel was the weak point since it spooled and broke. The rod and line looks heavy enough, but if your drag could not hold the fish at 100%, then the reel may have been undersized.

[JeppeH]

1. Never, never, never use max drag on your reel. It will break!
2. You need stronger gear.
3. If you have this fight again (where you cant reel the fish in for this long time), just stop reel and let line out to lose the fish. This way your gear wont break.

There is no point in having this strong line and leader if your reel and rod dont match it, you only need just barely stronger line/leader than the dragforce your reel is generating on the setting you intend to fish with. Also your rod needs to be stronger than this dragforce.

For example, if your reel has a max drag of 10 kg and it has 8 different drag settings.
Each step = 1.25kg
(10kg/8 = 1.25kg)

so step 7 = 8.75kg of drag force
(7x1.25kg = 8.75kg)

Your rod, line and leader need to be greater than 8.75kg in order to not break. So basically a line that can handle 8.76kg will do just fine.

Unique pikes and muskies fight pretty hard and require some decent rod/reel.
Unfortunaly it was a long time ago I fished for them with weaker equipment, so I cant tell you which rod and reel you gonna need as minimum to get them in.

[Autisticsrule]

ok, i have the stats i need to share for the rod i use and ruined, it was the..

Golden Alli leger Rod - X heavy, fast action and very strong, with a 3oz quiver tip. it took some damage during the 6 game hour fight, but only went to 80% and had had a fair number of other fish before it.

the Reel who failed me so bad was the : Feeder Forcer - Golden edition, ratio : 4.8 Recovery 81cm, Mono 0.5 - 120 braid , 0.28 - 205 Max drag 4.75 ball bearings 4+1 "not sure how they effect the reel" weight 524g , i thought as this reel could catch me other good fish such as a unqine wels catfish that it was the best choice, cearly i was very wrong.

i also had a 100g lead weight, a size 7/0 barbelss catfish hook, and a 25.9 kg braid line "red" but aparrenty no leader equiped even though it says a Titainaum 0.35 on the left of the rod slot, but now i can't equip a new one and the leader slot is not there? odd... i was sure i had one on. my other Brutus Match rod has the same 25,9 kg line with a 25.5kg titainium leader on which is what i was sure i was using?

and a shiner for bait. now this i thought was a good set up, as i caught a number of large trophy fish on that day with that rod, large small mouth bass a trophy shad and a very big trophy walleye and a adlantic salmon, so i was sure i'd only be in trouble if i hooked a stregion which i was sure i was tackle prepared for with this kit. clearly i was very much mistaken, now that i've broken it down what should i correct?

Oh and why didnt after 6 game hours did the pike never tire? and finaly how do i keep the tesnion on my rod when the fish comes in rapidly towards me, without haven to heave the rod to the point i'm backwards and with increasing the drag, and does holding shift realy make me reel in faster? its not fun playing a fish if you cannot even look at it, and have to stare at a tree when reeling it in.

[Capt_Mac_141]

Originally posted by Autisticsrule:

................and finaly how do i keep the tesnion on my rod when the fish comes in rapidly towards me...............

The "Crazy Dance" works for me.

Immediately when the fish turns and runs at you and the tension bar drops (turns blue),

- point the rod straight up in the air and keep it there (to increase tension)
- hold the LMB to continue reeling in
- spam the RMB continuously
- all while waving the rod tip around like "crazy"

Lost a couple before I figured this out, but haven't lost one since.
No more losing fish to low tension when they run back at you.

[Lenny Rat]

The reel is your problem...way undersized. A fish pulling an undersized rig will never tire.

The setup must be properly balanced and the weakest link must always be your leader. You want the leader to break, if anything, to protect all your other stuff:

Rod wieght > Reel drag >Line weight > Leader weight

In your case:
Your rod held a maximum line weight of 18.5lb, you reel had a maximum drag of 10.5lb, your line was 20lb, and your leader was crazy heavy. Common sense says that a big Pike, a UNI or a large trophy at 25-32lb, would be far too much for that reel.

Plus, be sure that your bait, feeder, sinker, etc., does not get heavier than the maximum lure weight of your rod (except float rods).

[Autisticsrule]

thanks very much for your advice, i'll study my set up more and make better match ups, but can i also ask, what do the ball bearings have in effect to the reel? and the ratio and frontal or rear line drag/spoil have in relevence in game, if someone could explain i could understand the reels better. thanks

[Lenny Rat]

Ball bearings mean nothing. The only items of importance are the retrieve rate and the drag. Retrieve simply tells you if the lure will come in slower or faster; a faster retrieve may help you hold a fish that is charging, while a slower retrieve is better for slow action on lures.

Drag can be divided by the number of stops on the reel. If a reel has 8 stops and a max drag of 24lbs, each stop is 3lbs of drag. If you use a 20lb line, you want to set your drag on stop 6 (18lbs). Lower than the line or leader weight.

[Miya Daikitsu]

if it was me i grab bottom rod over feeder rod, bottom rods made be stronger fish then feeder rods i caught me 36 pike uni last night on bottom rod rig setup get your self one them rods setup up with like 35 lb line or higher and you should be good to go man.

[Autisticsrule]

Ta very much, i'll put this fresh info into prospective and see if i can do better, and yes i'll try and see if i can get hold of a bottom rod, once i unlock them as i'm only lv24 but no fear i can make the cast ~_0

[Lenny Rat]

I think you have pretty much what you need in that "golden pack" to catch pike.

[FormerFishFarmer]

Yeah, man, it was your Reel that's the problem. Actually, I would say that most of your set up was not great. I don't like to fish Pike with gear much under 30lbs (16.5kg). Muskie should be even heavier. If you are high enough level, try replacing that reel with a Mega Tank 7000 or something similar. Uniques for both Pike and Muskie are very, very large fish and fight much harder than any other similar sized fish these days. I think this is a change made in the last year or so as an answer to people farming Unique and Trophy Pike in Michigan to speed level.

[Inkslinger98]

sounds like you got blessed with one of the dreaded super fish. had a sturgeon and gar last week that were the same. (never tire) the sturgeon which I was sure was my biggest took me over 2 in-game hours to reel in and was only 44 lb. The Gar after 3 hours just swam away when the land animation started, But I caught another 10 min. later that weighed 84 lb. and only took 5 min. to land.

[Autisticsrule]

yeah a few times me and my mum when fishing get hooked up to a fish that takes forever to tire and land, recently i hooked a Trophy flounder, and that took well over two game hours to land, and the only reason i finaly caught it was when it came floundering in the bank shallows i ran up the bank and jumped on it... took five atempts of those to catch the bloody bugger, i often catch trophy flounder but have never had one that strong since, and that wasnt even unquie.

my mum on the other hand hooked on a tireless monster that took her over 3 game hours to finaly land, but then got upset from all her excitment when it turned out to be just a regualer Bowfin, even my own trophy bowfin catch only took 5 realworld mins, sometimes you just get that fish that won't give in, and your rod fingers feel the burn :D