Tim, I did that last week and hooked a real dandy piece of river cane. I almost landed it, but it rolled and threw the hook about a couple of feet from the shore. (Really happened...)Originally Posted by Panman
Rookie - It seems to me that if you feel a tick you should sock it to em - That way you can get them coming or going
Tim
Still had a lot of fun.
Ed
Buddy,
This issue of not feeling the bass take the fly (I don't use the term "strike" because the word hardly fits) is one that Jack Ellis addresses in his book, Bass with a Fly Rod. Jack's solution is soft, plastic baits. Bass hold them longer and attempt to swim away with then hence you are more like to detect a take. About the best that we feather merchants can do is to keep a tight line at all times. This includes a rod tip low to the water, density-compensated line and always keeping a tiny bit of forward motion on our fly. Even when I'm doing a countdown, I slowing take in a little bit of line as the fly sinks. Works for me---sometimes! The other option is to fish the surface exclusively. 8T
NO!
Enjoying the joys of others and suffering with them- these are the best guides for man. A.E.
I remember Homer Circle, in an OLD Sports Afield article, talk about Glen Lau filming him and reporting that bass were hitting his lures without him feeling anything on the line.
I have had problems using circle hooks with bass, and hooking them in the roof of their mouths. It is next to impossible to get the hook out without killing the fish, which is why I stopped using circle hooks for bass. Now I understand why!
Russ
I had a guide friend up in Maine teach me to set the hook twice on smallmouth bass. We both thought it was because we had habitually light hooksets due to all the trout and salmon fishing we did but the fly crushing thing explains it a lot better.
E.T. wrote "Jack's solution is soft, plastic baits."
This is one reason many of us like to use spun hair for bass bugs, thinking maybe the squishy feel is more natural, thus a "longer" grab.
Halibut seem the same in that you often cannot "set" the hook until they "let go".
Do you think light wire, STRONG hooks aid in penetration when they (the fish) DO let go.....like tiemco 8089's?
....lee s.
Lee,
I tell all of my fishing partners to not get into a big hurry with deer hair bugs, or foam poppers. The bass will hold these for quite a long while. I've had bass swim for forty or fifty feet with one of these before I knew they were there (distracted by something..happens a lot..). You really don't want to wait around, but too fast can be a problem too, especially with topwater baits.
Most of what we as fly fishermen throw at a bass will be 'held' for at least a bit. We aren't fishing with 'hard' baits, most times, and feathers and fur just 'feel' natural. Bass are used to 'food' that is prickly and hard, thus they hold most things longer than you may realize. Normally what causes a bass to 'reject' a bait has to do with it's 'taste' or 'odor', more than it's 'feel'.
I don't think the 'brand' of hook makes any difference, as long as the hook is sharp.
I use Mustad 3366 and Eagle Claw 455 hooks (nickled) for all my spun hair and foam topwater bass baits. A couple of strokes with a hook file, and these are sharper than any out of the box hook. They also won't 'break', something I have observed with the Tiemco, Daichii, and Gamagatsu hooks.
The 'trick' if there is one, with fish hooks and bass, is having a VERY sharp point on the hook. The bass' mouth is large, much of it is hard. You need for the hook point to 'grab' or 'catch' into whatever it touches inside the fish's mouth. This will give you few moments to get the line tight and get the hook buried.
Good Luck!
Buddy
It Just Doesn't Matter....
Razor sharp hooks and slow sweeping and strip hook sets are essential for hook setting in any type of bass. The flex on a fly rod totally negates any hard jerks on the rod to set the hook. I had a friend show me last year that test Buddy talked about. The only way you could pull the hook free was the slow but steady sweep of the rod, uilizing the very base of the blank, while using short hard strip set.
While using spinning gear the ideal hook set is to crank on the fish, same principle as the strip set.
Rarely do I ever feel the taps of a hit. For me it usually just a dead feeling, resistance, on the end of my line. Lots of my fishing is done at night so watching my flyline is very difficult.
Can't stress sharp enough hooks. If it doesn't sink into your thumbnail, you might as well be fishing hook less. Every couple fish and my hook gets a couple passes of the file, and I usually check my hook ever ten casts or so no matter what. I sharpen often enough that when my flies wear out it is because there is no point left, not because the fly has fallen apart.
Your hooks sharp????
Boy ... I don't know what kind of wimpy bass y'all have out your way, but around these parts bass hit like a ton of bricks! The secret to setting the hook is not by jerking the rod up like you would with a spin cast outfit, but rather by pulling sharply back the fly line with the tip of the fly rod pointing at the fish.
Dale
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