jigging raps open water fish coming unpinned

I like using jigging raps for open water walleyes, I have good success with them throughout the season. However, I do have a lot of fish come unhooked during the fight. A much higher percentage than jigs or lindy rigging or spinners. I catch enough to keep it worthwhile even with losing some. Does anyone else have the same problem? Should I swap the treble for a larger one? I am using no stretch line with a flourocarbon leader. Also I have noticed every so often I get a foul hooked fish. Maybe the ones I’m losing are foul hooked to start with? Any thoughts or advice is appreciated. Thanks.

I too use jiggin raps from time to time one open water. Going to a faster tip and mono helps a ton on lost fish. Lots of times you hook them on either the front or back hooks and when they start head shaking whipping that long hevy lure around you need that extra streatch in your line and fast tip rod to keep the line tight.

My line is pretty much no stretch, are you saying I should have some stretch in my line? The rod I used did have a fast tip. What you said about the small hooks makes sense, I had the same thought on the small hooks.

This might help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxDvThTno0E“>

This is just part of the jigging rap game. Just keep solid pressure on the fish. Almost 50 to 75% of my jigging rap fish come off in the net, so that just shows how fine of margin. I also lose quite a few fish midway up.

I use braid and a 5 foot fluoro leader. I wouldn’t go to mono personally, I like the ability to drive the hooks. Especially because a lot of the time you are fishing a little deeper and often on a casat.

Reed Joly wrote:

Also I have noticed every so often I get a foul hooked fish. Maybe the ones I’m losing are foul hooked to start with? Any thoughts or advice is appreciated. Thanks.

The way walleye hit jigging raps some days leads to a lot of poorly hooked fish. The same sweeping, swimming motion that triggers the fish to hit the bait is also the same motion that makes the bait an erratic target. Plus a jigging rap is a very compact and heavy bait for it’s size making it hard for a fish to inhale the bait completely into it’s mouth. I know I get a lot of fish that pin the bait down on the bottom as soon as the jigging rap comes to rest after a sweep and those fish are often poorly hooked in the outer lip or under the chin. Those fish frequently get off and there’s just nothing you can do about it. As Ben said, it is basically the nature of the beast. Not that you shouldn’t be looking for ways to minimize the number of lost fish but don’t expect to ever completely eliminate it.

I’ve had mono recommended to me, or maybe it was more like “If you don’t use mono you can’t fish jigging raps with me.” I’ve had pretty good luck hooking them (in my relatively limited experience with jigging raps) with a St. Croix AS68MXF which is an extra fast medium spinning rod that I love for pitching jigs with mono on the river.

Everything above is right on! I always go one size bigger treble hook also.

Nate

Wow! Thanks to everyone for all your comments and help.

I may be wrong but I believe Rapala makes an open water version with larger hooks.

belletaine wrote:

I may be wrong but I believe Rapala makes an open water version with larger hooks.

They do. It’s called the snap rap. I find the jigging rap to be a much better producer for the waters I fish.