The conventional wisdom for fighting a fish has always been pump up, reel down — that is, pump the rod upwards to put pressure on the fish, then reel in the slack as you’re lowering the rod. Unfortunately, a lot of fishermen have forgotten this basic rule and just try reeling like madmen. This technique is ineffective and will bring you plenty of trouble.

One of the biggest things I’ve been hearing lately is people using spinning tackle complaining about line twist. The worst thing you can do with spinning or spincasting tackle is to reel against the drag. When you’re reeling, the rotor is turning in one direction. As drag is feeding line out, the spool is turning the opposite direction. By reeling against the drag, you’re putting a lot of twist into the line quickly. In case you don’t know, line twist is bad. Very bad.