I did some BIG trips in 2023 chasing BIG fish on the fly using #12 wht rods – which resulted in tearing the tendon on my right elbow. This is essentially tennis elbow – but on a chronic level and is a very frustrating injury that a lot of anglers will experience. You need to stop fishing and work through a recovery program to fix it.
After six months of physio and no fishing, I had a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection under general anesthetic – which made a huge improvement. I only had one injection under general anesthetic as my orthopedic surgeon believes that local anesthetic takes away a lot of the benefits of the procedure and you will require more injections to gain a positive result.
You will need to follow an exercise/stretch routine and I found the Theraband Flexbar was a great tool to assist this – It comes in different resistance models and I found the green/medium one was best for me, but they do come in four resistance sizes. If you search “tennis elbow” on Utube you will find loads of videos covering other stretches and recovery programs.
I also found the Bauerfeind EpiTrain Elbow Brace has been great and I now wear it all the time when fishing. There is an additional strap that you can add if needed as well.
After three months of no fishing – I reached a point where I HAD to go fishing! So in February 24 and did a sneaky two-day trip up to Awoonga with Katrina where I landed my new top water PB with this beautiful fish at 103cm on a frog 😉
Check out the condition of this beast!
A couple of months later in May I was at the “NEED to go fishing” stage again and fitted my New Minn Kota Riptide Terrova Quest and did a day trip up to Monduran with mate Nath – which resulted in another beautiful 103cm beast – this time on a Zerek 5.5 live mullet 😉
I then fly-tested my elbow out at Christmas Island on the bonefish in July ( see previous article 😉 ) which I am pleased to say went well – so now I am looking forward to some more of these beasts as we head into spring 🙂
Cya’s next trip Scotto
