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Setting the hook?


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How do you usually set the hook?  Pulling up or sweeping?

I ask because when in my kayak, butt virtually on the surface of the water, I lose quite a few after the hit.  I am thinking that because I am so low, I should pull up hard...not sweep.  Also, thinking of a longer stiffer rod. Ideas???

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  • Super User

Jigs and soft platics (worms,creatures, etc) I pull relatively staight up, maybe more like an 80 degree angle. AND HARD  A longer rod would help I think.

For crankbaits or anything with treble hooks I basically just turn my upper body and let the rod follow.

For spinnerbaits a mixture of the two.

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I only use 7' and 7.5' rods with my spinning reels.  Better casts, better hook sets, better leverage to easily work your bait through the thick grass.

As for side hook sets vs. verticle... I think everyone will agree that verticle hook sets are always the way to go. Sometimes, you'll get a bump at the wrong time when your rod is in an awkward position and have no choice but to give it a side hook set, but for the most part I think you want to try to avoid that.

I stand by both of those paragraphs regardless if I'm standing in a boat or sitting in a canoe.

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With either style, most peoples biggest problem is they believe that they need to set the hook harder. Well that's not the case. When you feel the hit drop the rod tip just a little bit and POP it, and then get on the reel quick. When you set the hook you're not driving the hook thru the fishes mouth. You're just starting the point and the fish fighting is what drives it on home. Jimmy Houston is the one that showed me this.

He took a crankbait and held it in his hand. He told me to set the hook as hard as I could and he bet me that I couldn't stick a single hook in him. Well he won. Granted that's with mono that has strecth and things may be different with braided line, but I wouldn't know because I don't use braided line.

As for setting the hook on crankbaits or anything with treble hooks. You don't set the hook. You'll just take the bait away from him. When you feel the bite you give a short sweeping motion and put tension on the rod and line. The fish will set itself!

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Excellent post Skeeter6598, I must have missed it yesterday. Another point I'll make regarding pulling the lure away or the treble hooks out of a fish,  I recommend a moderate or slow action rod for cranks, jerkbaits and topwater.

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Skeeter6598 nailed it. The only exception I would add is when you are fishing a worm on mono and the fish hits it way out there on a long cast. Then I would sweep it due to mono's stretch. A sweep set gives you that distance you need without falling out of the boat. There are very few other methods of fishing plastics where a sweep is the norm. One that comes to mind is the Slider Method. In short it is slowly swimming a short worm on a Slider Jig with very light tackle.

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I've just switched to P-Line FlouroClear. Haven't been able to really give it a good analysis but hoping to this weekend!

please clue me in on ur results.  I just bought it and am pretty happy with it.  but I'm not real knowledgable on how to tell good line from bad.  heh

just don't forget to wet the line before you cinch the knot tight.

don't forget to?  I didn't know to.  thanks for the tip, I'll do it from now on if it makes any difference.

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