D4u2s0t, this discussion started of with bartoopuck stating "i feel the rod hit, bam, bam, 1 or 2 times, then i see my line moving, so i give er the whole heave ho, and nothing."

That 1 or 2 bumps/taps/ticks does not indecate a bream/bluegill/perch bite, add to this the statement "so i give er the whole heave ho" and you have the ingredents for getting skunked.

I my opinion bartoopuck is either not setting hook soon enough, not getting all the slack out of his line before setting hook, or not setting hook with authority; all common mistakes of an inexperenced angler throwing plastics.

Catt- This is kinda off the subject of this post. But I wanted to ask the question about reeling ALL of the slack out of the line when setting the hook. I was watching The Bass Pros on the versus channel and it had Woo Daves on there talking about setting the hook on plastic worms...he said NOT to reel in all of the slack and even showed an example by holding the worm in his hand and the rod in the other and doing hook sets with a slack line and a tight line. on a tight line the hook barely went through the worm. And on a semi slack line the hook set actually ripped the worm in half when it went through it. So my question is when people say lower the rod tip, reel in the slack and set the hook. Do you want ALL of the slack out or do you want a semi slack line when setting the hook??

Feeling a worm/jig bite and setting hook with a worm/jig requires keeping a certain amount of tension on your line while at the same time keeping a certain amount of slackness in your line.

Too much slack and you will not get a solid hook set

To tight and the bass will feel you

Thanks Catt--I have recently been playing around with this. When i first started using plastics I reeled way too much slack out of my line and missed a lot of fish. Now I am trying the whole semi slack line and am landing way more fish than I used to. Thanks for the reply Catt.

D4u2s0t, this discussion started of with bartoopuck stating "i feel the rod hit, bam, bam, 1 or 2 times, then i see my line moving, so i give er the whole heave ho, and nothing."

That 1 or 2 bumps/taps/ticks does not indecate a bream/bluegill/perch bite, add to this the statement "so i give er the whole heave ho" and you have the ingredents for getting skunked.

I my opinion bartoopuck is either not setting hook soon enough, not getting all the slack out of his line before setting hook, or not setting hook with authority; all common mistakes of an inexperenced angler throwing plastics.

I agree, we got way off topic here...  My original idea, based off the experience on my lake, was that possibly it wasn't bass hitting, it was panfish.  That's how we got all whacked out here. 

If it is infact bass biting his line, I agree with what you said 100%.