Today I was talking to one of my customers in the fishing side and he was talking about the black bass he went to PNG to catch being a dirty fighter.
So I was thinking if everyone knew what is a Dirty Fighter, when refered to a fish at the end of the line. So in angling lingo, a Dirty Fighter refers to any fish that after being hooked, takes your line and moves around obstacles or structures that make it impossible to reel it in, either because your fishing line will get tangled or cut by the structure.
So these fish are not really trying to give you a low blow, but they head to structures as a reaction to being hooked and pulled on making fighting them harder.
In the freshwater context, the Black Bass is considered a dirty fighter, especially when you are fishing near a river or lake's shoreline, where there are many logs, branches and roots for them to run into.
Salt water fish like trevally often run when hooked and if near the shore, they can run around rocks or even man made structures like plylons of boat docking pontoons.
So if you are targeting a species known to be a dirty fighter, you should always up your gear to a heavier poundage to more likely survive the beating that your line will surely take. Also if you can move yourself around, you can prevent your line from snagging by coming close to the fish and changing the direction your pulling at.
