Went out today and caught a few decent sized on a t-rigged zoom lizard. I noticed the hooks are setting low in the mouth, sideways, behind the tongue and into the 1st or 2nd gill and or gill plate. One fish im pretty will die, it bled quite a bit. The others were fine but im perplexed as to why the hooks are setting this way. Im using a 2/0 hook with a small 1/8 oz clamshell splitshot. I set the hook with a straight up hook sweep. So far ive had 3 fish hooked like this and cant figure it out. Anyone else have this issue or is it just the nature of the beast?

Ewg or strait shank?

Straight

Went out today and caught a few decent sized on a t-rigged zoom lizard. I noticed the hooks are setting low in the mouth, sideways, behind the tongue and into the 1st or 2nd gill and or gill plate. One fish im pretty will die, it bled quite a bit. The others were fine but im perplexed as to why the hooks are setting this way. Im using a 2/0 hook with a small 1/8 oz clamshell splitshot. I set the hook with a straight up hook sweep. So far ive had 3 fish hooked like this and cant figure it out. Anyone else have this issue or is it just the nature of the beast?

I always seem to have the weirdest hook sets with t rigged lizards...Yesterday i caught a decent 3lber.....but based on the way the lure and line was, im pretty sure this bass sucked it in, the lure went out through its gills, and then it reattacked it. i cant think of any other way for a line to be wrapped in and out like that

May be waiting too long to set the hook.  This will always be a problem when fishing plastics, but "letting them take it" will result in way too many deeply hooked fish.