hook set?

[JasonB]

I mean, I wake myself from deep sleep setting the hook in my dreams sometimes. I will coming flying up in bed swinging my arms. I have straight scared the #%%^ out of my wife. I am a hook setting freak of sorts.

Ha! Man, can I relate! Funny story there, I was flying home from Alaska this fall, and was dog tired so I fell asleep pretty early on in the flight. Dream after dream of hooking/fighting/landing/loosing fish, etc. At one point I woke myself and my poor seat neighbor up with a world class "power-set"; I kind of remember the dream and all I can say is that it involved a very large and aggressive silver. Felt pretty self conscious at almost knocking out the poor guy next to me on the plane. Thankfully he was an angler and knew exactly what was going on, and we had some some pretty good fishing chats a bit later in the flight.

[Rmacneil656]

I just spent three and a half days on the trinity. Half pounders are easy to let hook themselves. I found that I was getting a lot of "thumps" from player fish and I tended to set the hook like I was nymphing, straight up and out of the fishes mouth. I can now saw from experience that that is the wrong way to do it. I missed the same fish three times in a row (after switching flies and backing up 20 feet and working down again). I tried the pinch line method and still end up lifting. I finally corrected the problem at the end of the trip by holding the rod with the left hand or holding the rod by the lower handle. I like holding the rod by the second handle because it dosent allow me the torque to lift the rod even if I wanted to. The one fish I nailed on the swing as a 30 inch wild hen. She thumped, and while I waited for the line to take off nothing. I ended up pulling horizontally on the rod in more of a strip set fashion. This set the hook really well and led to a great fight and a quick release while trying to tail the fish ( bang my head!).

Questionoes anyone advise against a horizontal hook set? Traditionally I run my drag on the light to medium side incase of a violent strike. Just want to break the habit early if this is not recommended.

[bigfly]

When dry flyin' or bobbering, and the fish is up-stream, I think sweep-set horizontally and downstream.
But once they are downstream of me, it's a strip-set.
I've said before...The hardest thing in streamer fishing, to me, is a strip-set, and if no one's home on the set....feed it to them.
Seems to me, they "thump it" to stun, before eating, and believe they've done this, when it falls back to them.
I think a rod set reduces hook-ups, by taking it away from them. And with a long rod, that's a long way away....
We are all wired to rod-set like a big dog.....the question arises, can you rewire? Over-right your software, so to speak.
Taught myself to do this by keeping the rod tip in the water until it's fish on.
More than a few full body shudders involved, before it became "learned".
Drag is set lightly, and I keep a little loop in my hand, for shock resistance.....
There is nothing sweeter for me, than when I get this right, and.....FISH ON!!!
If we only get a few grabs, then the set is pretty important........


Jim

[Dan Harrison]

Ha! Man, can I relate! Funny story there, I was flying home from Alaska this fall, and was dog tired so I fell asleep pretty early on in the flight. Dream after dream of hooking/fighting/landing/loosing fish, etc. At one point I woke myself and my poor seat neighbor up with a world class "power-set"; I kind of remember the dream and all I can say is that it involved a very large and aggressive silver. Felt pretty self conscious at almost knocking out the poor guy next to me on the plane. Thankfully he was an angler and knew exactly what was going on, and we had some some pretty good fishing chats a bit later in the flight.

That is some funny stuff right there. Glad I am not the only one. Haha

[itsbenlong]

I think about this all the time and really love to hear all the stories on everyones preferences. I used to fish bass tournaments years ago and have always been that guy who feels that tick and rips my rod up so hard and fast that I surprise myself that a whole fish is still on the other end. However, over the years when prefishing with my old tourney friends I often stick to only fishing the largest spro frog made and over the past three or four years that is all I throw. The reason why I am telling this story is that when fishing frogs, you have to rewire your brain like mentioned above and give it a good pause before setting the hook.

I am really good w/ frogs these days partly due to teaching myself to pause and can't believe how much it has helped me with my steelhead catching. I just have to always remember to loosen my drag after each fish or that big tug can break the line when dropping a loop.

[ycflyfisher]

I think Bruce pretty much covered all the bases as far as the WFS goes. No one fishes the greasedline any more and that’s something I’ve always found puzzling.

All the issues discussed above concerning solid hooksets and the WFS pretty much straight up evaporate 100% with the GL. Since you’re swimming the fly across the river more perpendicular to the current rather than fishing the fly on a WFS tether where the fly assumes an upstream orientation (pointed at the angler) and arcs across the river, you can hammer ‘em hard the very moment you feel anything or see the strike because the orientation of the fly on the GL pretty much insures you’re going to get a corner of the jaw hookup even if you get a grab within seconds of the line hitting the water. The fact that in the GL you’re purposely letting the 10’ or so of flyline nearest the fly form a downstream belly to swim the fly across the current, also insures that during the middle and later portion of the GL presentation, the fish has turned, by the time you lift that slack out of the line. Also because there really isn’t a “hang down” aspect to the GL, “tip of the snout” hookups rarely if ever happen.

While the hookset benefits to the GL are significant, the biggest benefit IMO is that when you get a refusal on the GL you often get some visual indicator that an adult fish moved on, but did not grab your fly. That could be something violent and obvious like a boil or blow up, or something more subtle like a buldge, or a portion of a caudal following or very momentarily emerging through the film.

On the WFS where you’re mending to keep the entire line tight to the fly, you’re also by default slowing the presentation down and allowing the fly to gain depth. With your fly 1’+ deep over most of the presentation, you’re still IMO moving those fish on the WFS and getting those refusals, but there are no visual indicators. 4 steps down and 2 casts later, you’re not even presenting the fly in that fish’s visual window unless it dropped back on the refusal. Considering that there’s usually some structure that was causing that fish to hold where it was, they usually by my account, don’t drop back.

If I had to guess, I’d say 70-75% of the adult fish I’ve landed in the KMP in Sept and Oct were fish that initially moved on, but refused the fly on the GL presentation, but I was eventually able to get them on the line by persistently hammering on them. That said, a WFS with a rigorous Tucker Twitch is often what gets those fish on the line for me. But WFS alone, and I wouldn’t even had known those fish were there. Low and slow IMO is rarely the %age method of conditions are condusive the the GL.

[speyfool]

Just a couple of weeks ago, I had one of those days I thought you'd only have in Alaska. All day long, I was getting grabs from both steelhead and salmon. It was such an active day and feeling satisfied, I started experimenting with hooksets. Previously, I almost always did the same thing. Tip down to the water, hold a loop, let the fish take line then either no hookset whatsoever and let the current/fish drive it home, or a slight hookset.

Long story short. I'm now changing how I do it, at least with a sinktip. No loops, a good middle of the road drag setting and wait until I hear/feel line being taken by the fish without any interference from my finger or moving the rod. sometimes I pause a good 3-5 seconds when line begins to come off, then I finger pinch and use a steady and deliberate hookset (start slow, and briskly speed up the rod movement) to the bank with a low rod tip. My landing ratio spiked on this day enough that I'll be adjusting from here on out. Granted, it is a small sample set, but in situations that normally are tough hooksets, I was getting them.

This was working in both soft water along the bank and in fast tailouts. The only difference was the intensity of line coming off the reel (if at all in the real slow sections).

** Bonus for using this method is the sweet reel clicking when you get that first grab.

[lynnwhite44]

I go with loosening my drag, no loop, rod tip down low and not touching the fly line. It was hard to do at first because you always want to set the hook but I've gotten used to it. I usually never set the hook, I just lift the rod slowly toward the bank. Now if I can only remember to look down after every cast to see that my fly line is not wrapped around the reel handle. I lost two fish this way on a recent trip. The first one was just pecking at the fly but the second one slammed it and almost ripped my rod out of my hands and snapped my tippet.

With sink tips I sometimes have to pinch the line.