I have been noticing a lot of hype on the internet with the growing popularity of catfishing. I started this post to express my views and expriences, and to see how other anglers experience compares.
“When to set the hook” is an age old question that I have been asked countless times, and its a difficult question to answer properly, and how to set the hook can be equaly as difficult.
When: This is like a trick question I do not like to answer… I almost depend on a *6th sense* and when it “feels right”, I make an attempt to put the hook home. Some nights we cant do anything wrong because the fish are feedng aggressively and putting the bait down, other night the fish are hitting in strange ways, or alternate species are rabbing the bait that are very difficult to hook(channel cat hiting large bully). Our hookup ratio might be 100% one night, and 0% the next.
Bites I like… When the Flatheads give the traditional *chomp*, and hold a slight load on the rod for a short period of time.. sometimes you can see/feel the fish continue to chomp. Soon after, the fish slowly starts to swim away with the bait.. rarely do these fish avoid getting a hook in them regardelss of size.
*Side-sweeping bites* .. these are the bites where we often see the chomp, then we see our tip jumping in a strange way that slightly resembles a struggling bait if you are not paying attention. The tip is bouncing from the weight skipping across the bottom… sometimes these fish are coming towards you also. “Most of the time” these are also high percentage hookups because we spend longer than normal determining 100% that is a fish on the end of the line, and not our bait… the fish has consumed the bait before we set the hook. The most important thing to remember is to be positive the line is tight and you arefeeling the weight of the fish(dont set on a slack line!).
The last of the “good bites”.. when the fish smack it, and just sit there and eat it, most often they will hold a slight load to the rod… for some reason when a fish is on the end of the line not doing anything.. we dont do anything either for a short period of time. A flathead only takes an instant to put down a good size bait, 10 seconds can be an eternity.
The Frustrating bites… Lowest hookup percentage.. The fish that smack the bait like a freight train and run.. and run and run. Often these are channel cats, but flatheads will test our nerves by doing this in some locations regularly. More often than not when a clicker is screaming, we are going to come back ith a beat up bait, or no bait at all. When the hook does go in, many times these fish are lost. Maybe these fish are getting slightly hooked on the strike and not liking it, maybe they are ultra aggressive.. I honeslty have no idea, but I guarantee we will all have these hits occasionaly. I have found no consistant way to hook those fish, I nearly always let them run in hopes they stop sometime soon to eat it… usually I am left crossing my fingers that the hook finds something when I engauge the reel.
The other frustrating… the fish hit and come right at you leaving you catching up with slack.. it only makes sense to me the least likely way to get a hook into a fish is pulling the hook strait out of the mouth.
When to set the hook? Thats a tough question. One wise phrase I heard from Brian K in the past is “Fish Dont have Hands”.. or translated, if you feel a fish on the other end of the line, it has your bait in its mouth. The feeding mood, or aggression of the fish that given evening is also a big factor.. if the fish are there to eat, usually the time to set the hook is as quick as you get it out of the rod holder and the line is tight. Other days when the fish are being finicky, and dont seem to want to eat the bait they just grabbed, a short delay might greatly increase your hookup percentage. The feeding actions/mood are often determined by previous missed runs, or an irratic run in progress.
So Now…. I am all psyched because a submarine has my bullhead in its mouth and I need to set the hook… How should I set the hook?
#1, make sure the line is tight, and has at least slight load. Its best to let the fish start pulling away to create this non-disputable direct connection between your rod and the fish, if the fish isnt moving away, you will have to pick up the slack and create that tension.
#2a.. Mono folks, especially lighter mono(20# and less).. when you get that fish tension, set the hook in a hard, fast sweeping motion and be sure you have good rod load, if the tension isnt great, reel the tip down(holding tension and set it again. Flatheads have tough skin,and larger diameter hooks are not always the easiest things to penetrate with a bungee cord.
#2b .. Superline … when you have obvious fish tension, it doesnt take much more than a snap of the wrist and sweep to set the hook into these fish. No stretch lines backed up by heavy rods put a whole lot of pressure on that hook in a hurry. It does not take much to get the bullhead off the hook when the bullhead is lodged in a fishes mouth or throat. Its far more important to pay attention to proper hook setting procedure, than to lose focaus trying to set a hook in a way that would stop a hippo. A few pounds of pressure is more than enough to sink in 10/0 Gamakatsu, and even less is needed on smaller sizes. The more forgiving(soft) the rod is, the harder you have to set the hook, the heavier rods out there do not need much.
#3 .. as soon as that hook is home and the fish is on the end of your line pulling out drag… no level of hooksetting is going to further bury the hook beyond what the #20 of drag is going to do.. or about the equivelent of dragging a cinder block.
The reality is.. we are not fishing crappies, we must set the hook with some authority… but we don have to do Bill Dance impersonations and try to launch the fish out of the water on the hooksets either.
Every year I see many fish missed because of poor hooksetting procedure… this is something that can be avoided… no worries, we will all miss enough doing everything right!
