A-Jay

Question was designed to help you self-access. IMO Yes you are reeling too quick: like running the bases before you hit the ball. You need to swing the bat man. Additionally landing a bass is not a race, there are no points for speed an no one is timing you. Clearly you shouldn't take all day but perhaps while your throwing topwater, if you slow down your whole deal there, you could get the steps right. Work the bait, set the hook, reel in and play the fish - btw - the rod plays the fish, the reel recovers the line. Reeling against a spinning drag is counter productive. Perhaps, instead of using your reel like a winch, fight the fish with your rod. Pull the fish to you, lower the rod a bit to reel in the line you've recovered, repeat until the fish is in the net. You may find it works better. A-Jay

Stop enabling. A-Jay

@TotalNoob Please explain in your own words, how & when you "set the hook" What are the exact steps / procedure YOU USE to help cause the points of the treble hooks to sink past the barb and into the fish ? A-Jay

Nice Nass for you both ~ Congrats A-Jay

Uni-to-uni and I go through a ton of this stuff each season. Not so much for topwater (frogs occasionally yes) but early & late season when the bigger pike & Musky are more prone to be shallower and mixed in with the bass, I have this in front of most everything; including but certainly not limited to Jerkbaits, squarebill & crankbaits, lipless baits, Spinnerbaits & Vibrating and swim Jigs, all that mess. Doesn't seem to affect anything except the improved landing of tanker toothy beasts and I don't get chewed off. A-Jay

Me too Sir ~ And I'm willing to go some serious extremes to repeat that as often as possible. A-Jay

Nicely Done Sir. By you and especially The Senko Queen . . . A-Jay

Congratulations on an outstanding derby @everythingthatswims I for one really enjoyed watching & especially listening to you fish today. You did yourself proud. A-Jay

Smashed another one ! "Total Cluster" I foresee a Bass Mafia Sponsor ship in his future The Bassmaster media dudes are learning and seeing first hand what we've known & seen for a while. So Good. A-Jay

Regardless of how this event turn out. Mr Minor's performance so far today is very reminiscent of young angler I followed several years ago. Routinely known by just three letters, he's now a legend in this sport. We could be witnessing the earliest stages of the same deal. #recognizetheawesomeness A-Jay

I can't look away ! A-Jay

How Good is this ! The man is the bass catchinest dude around ! A-Jay

BAM ~ ! In the boat. Takes the LEAD ! A-Jay

The man is making his move - Less than 2 lbs back now with quite a bit of fishing to go. He's fishing in the middle of a massive amount of bait. A-Jay

With the yellow perch being the predominant shallow bait fish in many of my home waters, when targeting shallow water smallies, a perch colored Pop Max is tough to beat . A-Jay

And the freaky good performance continues . . . Little behind the 8 ball to start but there's plenty of fishing ahead. A-Jay https://www.bassmaster.com/video/college-classic-bracket-live

Again no hook set. I was using a 7' M fast stick right there. As for rod position - you'll have to play with that and find what's good for you. There may be no right answer - just needs to be effective and that can start from a variety of different positions (angles). Braid helps with hook set for sure and so does sharp quality trebles which do not always come standard on many lures. I change most all my stock trebles to either Mustad, Owner or Gamakatsu after market trebles. Seems to make a difference for me as most stock stuff is pretty bad. A-Jay

This is an easy fix. You are NOT setting the hook. You are hoping the bass hooks itself and just reeling it in. Sometimes it happen, most times it does not. Rarely does simply reeling in a bass after it has struck a bait - including a topwater presentation sufficient to successfully land it. Despite having treble hooks, it is almost always a good plan to have at least some semblance of a hook set. With your bait seen in the clip you provided, it's not necessary to come out of your shoes with it but once you feel the weight of the fish, a sudden yank back to bury some hook points, BEFORE you start reeling it in, will No Doubt improve your strike to land ratio. Here's a clip of a smallmouth I took on a topwater bait this week. You'll see the strike and what I mean about the hookset fairly well. Good Luck. A-Jay

I don't know how you knew but - you are right. Not to hi-jack Sam's thread but from 1983-85 I was a small boat coxswain at the USCG Search & Rescue Station right there in Newburyport, MA. Many times when the Merrimac river Bar was breaking too big to get back in, while wait the 6 hrs for the tide to turn, we would go out to the Isle Of Shoals, tie up and check it out. Doing at night was a heck of deal. Place surely seemed like there was always someone watching us despite the place had been deserted at that point for some time. Oh the times we had. Thanks @jbmaine for allowing me to take a walk down memory lane. Btw - running that river & Breaking bar at night was wild - especially in the winter with Volkswagen sized sections of Iceburgs tumbling around in the waves with us. Talk about scary ! A-Jay

Nicely Done Sir ~ And wasn't aware that KVD still fished those crabkbaits. A-Jay

Very Timely Thread ~ I fish for smallmouth a good majority of the time. My home waters of northern Michigan offer some very decent brown bass populations that I've become fairly addicted to. Early and as we're discussing here, late season, are historically fantastic times for both numbers & especially bigger fish. Over the years I've learned a thing or two regarding how, where & in particular When to get in on this most exciting fishing. The Single Most Important factor my time on the water has proven to me (and that's a fairly bold statement) is that "The Transition", to what I always believed is 'the fall bite', happens Much Much earlier than what is so often penned in articles as 'the best time to fish'. The often talked about determining factors such as air & water temps, length of day, angle of the sun, shallow weeds dying off, bait moving shallow, and my personal favorite, when the ferns start to turn yellow, may all play a role here in determining when 'the fall bite' comes on. However, I believe there's something else completely that moves the bait & the fish and I have no clue to what it is. But I don't care - I just know that the fish are there with regularity starting in August and a "Fall like bite' will soon follow. Several seasons ago, while struggling to get bit in the typical deeper 'late summer' haunts, I started looking shallow; purely out of frustration, mind you. Not based on any of the factors mentioned above - I just wanted to catch bass. And low & behold I did. Despite the weather having not cooled off, air & water temps still pretty high, Weeds (and the ferns) still all kinds of green, there was clouds of bait and bass hunting them down in places I'd have never expected or believed, if I hadn't seen it myself. Shallow Flats were the deal, the bigger the better, usually very early morning. Squarebills, swimbaits, Lipless baits, topwater, spinner baits, Standard, swim & vibrating jigs are a few of the baits that have proved solid producers. All the typical 'fall baits' I guess, just working several weeks in advance of where & particularly, when 'the experts' routinely indicated they should. This as driven me to start my search for 'fall transition' bass & bait, well in advance of September. Waiting until then will routinely have me completely missing out of at least two & sometimes 3 plus full weeks of big fish opportunities. While there is always a certain population of bass that stay deep and not all the fish do the same thing at the same time, the shallower bass are there to EAT, making them much more appealing for me to target. Besides, I'm usually totally burnt out on dangling a drop shot in 30 feet or slow reeling a spybait by then. Often times the same places on a lake can & do produce season after season. However in the early stages of my search, especially on new & or big water, I'll actually do something that I call 'fishing for bait'. While cruising potential areas and visibly looking for signs of life, I'll swim a small curly tail worm through what I believe to be likely 'bait holding areas'. When I start to get that tell-tale tap-tap-tap type bite from the little perch, minnows, or little panfish, there's a decent chance that this spot/area has potential. And I can do this during the middle of the day, meaning not during prime bass eating periods. Then mark the spot and check it later. The past several seasons, a quick look at my report posts for early & mid August (and this week in particular) indicate this has paid off enough to where by the 1st of August, there's always at least a small supply of 4 inch power worms in the boat. Don't miss out. That's my story and I'm stick'in to it. A-Jay

Is that what you crazy kids call it now ? A-Jay

Hello Tony and Welcome to Bass Resource ~ A-Jay

Yes - air temps approaching 90 and water temps shallow in the mid-70's. But I have to say the exact opposite of what I expected has happened. Bait is shallow and the big fish are on them hard. Past two days the smallies I'm on are averaging over 5 1/2 lbs. Go look shallow first. You can catch nothing anywhere . . . A-Jay

Forget the deep water - Get on 'the biggest' mid depth flat (4-8 ft) somewhat close to deep(er) water. Don't fish until you find the food, perch, small sunnies or pumpkinseeds or crayfish - (like gold btw). Once you do, make long casts and Burn your favorite (insert most appropriate for the deal) horizontal presentation all over that deal. Admittedly, super early mornings may be your best bet and the bite may not last - especially if there's zero wind. But it's worth a shot. Hang on . . . . . A-Jay