Long ago, when there was still a hawker centre along the banks of the Singapore River, there was my brother and his blue-white Nilsmaster lure. We were happily flicking lures and within 2 hours I had already landed two Garoupas weighing in at 1 kg each (both went into the rocks but came out after about 30 minutes of guitar-playing) so the pressure was now on my brother who green-eyed my catch to such an extent that whenever I looked over to see what he was doing I would catch him staring at the ice-box which held the Garoupas.
Anyway, his persistence paid off and I rushed over to help him as he shouted BIG FISH!!! BIG FISH!!! But we both knew that his fish had gone into the rocks as the previous two had done. Now came the dilemma of choosing the best method of coercing the fish out of its hole:
Method 1: Which I had used to bring out the twins, was to tug, pluck, pull, jerk, walk all over the place, pluck the line some more, walk around even more, and do everything as forcefully as possible WITHOUT BREAKING THE LINE. This method, which comes instinctively to many, has often worked for me. However there is no guarantee of success.
Method 2: Leave some slack in the line and try to con the fish into thinking that the trouble has passed. Then, as you notice your line start to move, tighten the drag and quickly pull the fish in before it realizes what's happening. This method has worked at times too.
Method 3: It's almost like method 2 except that instead of leaving a slack line, the line is kept taut. Also a very effective method.
Method 4: Swim down to the hole, use a stick (or if you're silly but daring enough, use your bare hands-- which I have done before, I don't know why I did it either but at that time it felt like the best thing to do) and force the fish out.
Method 5: Use a lure retriever. (The easiest, least time consuming method.)
Because at the time, Method 5 was not known to us and Method 4 was deemed 'extremely stupid', my brother was left with a combination of the first three methods. First, he tugged and jerked like hell for about half an hour till his arms got tired... in vain. Then he left some slack in his line and waited for 15 minutes... to no avail. At my advice, he used the Method 3 for about 15 minutes... but it too didn't work.
Yet he was still convinced that the fish was still there and he was not about to give up. Finally, however, he decided that enough was enough so he summoned all his remaining energy and started with Method 1 again. I thought that the line was going to snap on a few occasions but his 6 lb line held. And then, unexpectedly, my brother shouted IT'S OUT!!! and lifted his weary fish out of the water. You should have seen me rolling around the ground in laughter... his Garoupa weighed in at a humongous 180 grams.
The moral of the story: Persistence pays off... most of the time.
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