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Posts: 4
| Just wondering what everyones thoughts are on todays bigger and badder equipment. What are you doing at the time of the strike? multiple hooksets like in the old days, one good rip, or somewhere in the middle? Since the longer rod craze and super line came about, I've trained myself to do the one good rip method ( most times) and seems to be working out really well for me. This just got me thinking about all the videos of BoB Mesikomer how he always just sweeps the rod and fish on. Are we over doing it? Your thoughts? |
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Posts: 432
Location: Eagan, MN | I was interested to see some responses here, but since nobody has chimed in I'll give my two cents. If the strike occurs away from the boat I find it much easier to give a good set. I set once and only once. It's a hard set, but not bone jarring. More like a nice easy golf swing. I feel the few seconds following the strike and set are just as important as the set itself. You need to really try to put a sustained bend in the rod and grind the hooks in there. Up close it gets a little harder for me to do a full traditional hook set, but I also feel it becomes less important. The immediate sustained pressure seems to bury the hooks best. Also, I hear a lot of people talking about setting back into the fish on a figure 8. I've never done this, and I've never seen it done. I just keep pulling the same direction, same as I would do at any other point in the retrieve. It seems to me that when the fish hits you will already have the hooks penetrating in one way, it doesn't make sense to me that you would then want to pull it in another direction. |
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | load the rod, keep it loaded ... swim the fish under pressure into the net.
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Posts: 8834
| I used to fish with a "3 hookset" guy. He lost 50% of the fish he hooked.
I think once is good, unless you're fishing rubber and/or just plain nancied the first one. I never do that! 
Edited by esoxaddict 7/23/2012 4:53 PM
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| Set! Reel to catch up, and hit one more time! Bring the fish in as fast as possible and drive that big fish into the net! Hooksets and everything else change at boatside though! I have only been successfully muskie fishing for 2 years and I have a 13-2 catch rate(this only includes fish I have accually conected with), lost my 2 fish this past weekend... the first hit a DGC in the middle of my cast and couldnt keep her hooked past the first 2 reels after my hookset. The other was a nice mid 40"er that went into the air like a dolphin.. gills flared, head shaking and tossed my Bulldog! I am quite proud of my record but after this post I'm sure it will go right down the crapper! hahaha knock on wood!!!!!
-my buddy losses his fair share of fish I'm sure he will be reading this thread... hey Adam! |
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Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | One solid hookset. I don't believe it needs to be bone jarring either for the most part. With bucktails or hard plastic baits most of the time a decent sweep and constant pressure will sink the hooks in. I try to rock them a little more with rubber baits. I tend to put quite a bit of pressure on a fish, at least at first. Once I get a fish headed my way I back off the pressure a little but always maintain a good rod bend and fairly heavy pressure.
I think one thing to remember is you're going to generate a LOT more hooking power using the back half of the rod blank than a hookset with the rod high or way off to the side. If the rod is perpendicular to the fish you have to overcome a lot of bend in that rod. If the rod's pointing at the fish and you start pulling more back than up, that bait only has to move maybe a half inch to have the hooks buried past the barb. Probably one of the rasons bucktails hook so well - most of the time the rod's in a good position to set the hook.
If you had a hit at the very end of the pull and you have it a little baby jerk with no power, reel down, hope the fish still has the bait, and set the hooks a 2nd time. Otherwise, set the hook once and keep solid pressure on the fish and most of them should end up in the net.
Tucker |
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