This video featuers a 33-pounder that hit a pencil popper in a rocky environment. It’s common in these types of areas for the fish to run your line into rocks, and that’s exactly what this one did, twice. How you react can make the difference between a cut line and a landed fish. This fish is fought with less pressure than the large fish in the eel chapter. This turned out to be a good move as I found it was hanging by just one hook of the plug’s rear treble.

Here’s a video of a fish that ran me into the rocks and I backed way down on the drag pressure to keep the fish from cutting the line. It’s difficult to damage braid if there’s not much pressure on the line.