Pkfish49

This afternoon, in Boynton Beach, Florida, I was fishing with my nephew in a small community lake targeting Largemouth Bass, when the kid landed this. What is it? I believe it is a non-native Mayan cichlid.

Everything you said makes sense. I was using 15 LB braid.

These aren't intense fights. Just small Bass falling off the hook at the bank. Now that I'm thinking about it more, this has to be crappy hooksets because the point of failure is at the end when I'm starting to lift the fish out of the water. The hook is secure enough to reel the fish in, but not secure enough to withstand the extra force of gravity at the end.

I was using a plastic worm (either a 5 inch Senko or equivalent) Wacky Rigged to this hook: Tsuyoi Weedless Wacky Hooks 4/0. I've had the same issue with normal EWG 4/0 hooks as well. Your point #3 hits home. I've only been losing the littler ones and my technique isn't magically any better when I set the hook on heavier Bass. I can try some 3/0 hooks and see how it works out.

Ty - I've already been criticized for weak hooksets. The problem is that when I try and pull up faster or harder, I usually lose the fish right away. I'll take Glen's advice and try the slack hookset.

Ty - I'm the kind of guy who won't stop putting his hand on the stove until it gets burned. My technique worked for a while, but I'm losing too many now. So far, no big deal. The one in the vid wasn't more than 1.5 pounds and I haven't lost any big ones at my feet yet. I'll have to remind myself to practice your advice next time out.

This is part of a pattern with my shore fishing. At least a few times each session, I lose a fish at the end; the part when I'm starting to lift it out of the water. Why did I lose this one? Must be either a bad hookset, bad technique, or a combination of both. I can't think of anything else I could be doing wrong. Ty https://i.imgur.com/eCwg8Hw.mp4

The Cotton Cordel wally diver is one of my favorite lures. The problem is that if I throw something with treble hooks a lot, eventually I'll get a deep hookset that I won't be able to remove without killing or harming the fish. This wasn't a problem when I was upstate New York fishing and all legal catches were going into the frying pan, but now, I'm exclusively catch and releasing Bass and am not going to take the risk. I know the local Bass are attracted by the Wally diver as I've caught a few with the lure, but stopped when I remembered some problems removing trebles in the past. I'm not too handy, but had a friend replace the trebles on my shiny mepps with single weedless hooks. He told me that the rings on the wally divers were different and he was unable to replace those trebles. If there are single hook diving crankbaits, can somebody send me a link? Ty

I spent $29.95, and as I am out of my mind, spent $11.00 for UPS 2nd day air, so I could get the hooks before next weekend.

Ty - I'm $40.95 poorer now, but if I can catch Bass in the Lili Pads, it will be well worth it.

I've now been Bass fishing in South Florida for the past six weeks and my favorite setup is a plastic worm on a #4 EWG. Works great without weeds or Lili pads, but in cover, gets snagged more often than not. I found what I was looking for on Amazon, but $11.03 for one hook seems a little pricy to me: https://www.amazon.com/VMC-WWK-0BNPP-Wacky-Weedles/dp/B00AU5TUEM Can somebody please recommend a reputable vendor with a better price? Ty

I know it's not a race and I'm not practicing to be a pro. I think my main problem is that I don't instinctively trust the hookset and think that the longer the fish is in the water, the more chance it has of jumping off the hook. I'll try and take your advice next time I hook something that isn't small.

Ty 4 the advice. Will do in the future.

#15 Braid - with that information, does this still sound OK?

This fish weighed in at 2.58 pounds. I get this sound when I reel in fish at least 2.0 pounds, but not with the smaller ones. What is this sound from? Is this the sound of my drag not set correctly? Too loose? Too tight? Is the sound normal, or do I need to adjust something with my setup? I'm not always paying enough attention, but I believe I usually have the drag set not too far away from the tightest setting. Edit - the hosting site may mute the audio be default, but you can enable it from the volume icon. https://i.imgur.com/ycXVgZB.mp4

Great news! This morning, I tied a #4 EWG to my line (15 LB Braid) with a Palomar knot. With the wisdom of YouTube at my disposal, I got it right the first time. I plastic worm fished for a total of three hours and caught four largemouth bass, without having to re-tie. The heaviest was only 2.58 pounds, but I'm confident I'm doing this the right way and the knot would have held much heavier fish. The Palomar rocks, and so do all of you! Thanks for all of the advice!

Dicks was nice enough to take it back without the box or a receipt. They did have a record of the sale form my rewards account. I purchased something that works, both with light and heavy weights. The iBobber digital Bluetooth scale. More features than the Rapala, as this one saves all weights to my iPhone, making it easier to keep track of stuff. I haven't looked at all the features yet, but it looks to have some kind of tournament mode as well. Edit - Using the Amazon link for a description - I purchased the scale at Dicks. https://www.amazon.com/ReelSonar-Ibobber-Bluetooth-Measure-Gripper/dp/B07CNHZ8MY

I just caught a decent size Largemouth Bass and it still recorded 0.0.0. I then weighed myself on a real scale with and without holding the fish, and the difference was 2.58 pounds. I'm off to Dicks Sporting Goods to return it. I hope they don't give me a hard time. If they have a non-Rapala brand digital scale, I'll try it. In any event, can people please recommend some good alternatives? Rapala makes good lures, but the two rhcds50 scales that I've had were useless pieces of crap! I hope I'm not violating any forum Terms of Service by bashing the company, but I'm really pisssed. What if the defective scale caused me to miss recording a PB?

iPhone pics of two of the hooks with 5.1x zoom. Are these OK, or is it time to switch brands? https://i.imgur.com/H5ZLOF3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Se3O7cx.jpg

I have no idea whether this is considered a good brand, but I've been catching Bass with these hooks for the last month with Mono and haven't had any problems: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WW532QW/

Getting up early tomorrow and will try the Palomar. Not 100% sure whether I properly tightened the knots, as braid is so thin and I have a hard time seeing larger diameter mono. Spooler guy at Bass Pro Shops sold me something off his shelves, so I assume it was a good brand. I have to disagree with the second sentence. I've caught 2-3 pound Bass and tons of panfish with the clinch knot applied to mono. I did have a few Pickerel chew through my line, but those losses had to be less than 1% of the time. What I did notice is that with mono lighter than 10 LB, I had to do fewer wraparounds that I did with 10, otherwise the line would break, sometimes right away. I do wonder If I could get a working braid clinch knot with fewer wraps, but am not going to bother for now. I'm going to fish all day tomorrow and will reply to let everybody know how the Palomar worked out. In any event, I'm really hoping the braid works out for me. If I get twists eventually, I'll deal with it. This afternoon, I fished with a newly spooled reel for an hour without any twists or knots. That happens 0% of the time for me with newly spooled mono.

A brief intro about my experience before the question: I've been freshwater fishing since 2017, but climate, geography, and economics had limited my opportunities, which is why I'm still a beginner at so many aspects. Living in South Florida now, I fish almost every day, and hopefully, I'll be a pro at the by year's end. For the last four years, I had always used 10 LB mono on 4000 series spinning reels. Whether I tie on directly, or use a snap swivel setup, I always use a clinch knot. Never had any problems with this setup with the 10 LB mono. I just tried 15 LB braid on one of my reels and immediately ran into problems. I tied on a #4 EWG hook with a clinch knot and hooked a plastic worm. A few casts in, the the hook came flying off the line mid air! I don't fully understand everything that happened, because after reeling in, there was no line through any of the eyes. I'm thinking that possibly I reeled it in past the eyes and not used to looking for thin braid, I didn't see myself doing that. I re-tied on another #4 EWG with the same knot and shortly after hooked a small (less than 1 pound) bass. The hook snapped off before I could bring it to shore. It was at the very end of the retrieve, just as I was lifting it out of the water. Later in the session, I was able to finally catch a Bass, but it was short and light, one of the smallest I've caught. What's going on? Does the clinch knot not work at all with 15 LB braid, or is something else at play? Should I use another knot? I'm hoping to work out the kinks with braid, because it doesn't knot from memory. So far, I've also noticed that I can cast farther with 15 LB braid than 10 LB mono. Also, I lost 2 or 3 small Bass during this session that I would have brought in with mono. Do I need a modified hookset, or am I just getting used to the feel of the line? Ty

I was filming trying to record myself catching some fish, but ended up being able to show what I'm complaining about. This was more than halfway to a depleted spool, so the knot wasn't due to over spooling. Not sure if I could have undone the knot by bringing in the line by hand and and wrapping it around the loop, but I just ended up giving up and cutting off the line before the knot and re-tying the hook. I'd love to be able to fish and not have to deal with this. I don't know if the magic Cabelas spoolers will fix this for good, but I'm glad I going anyway, as I've never been to one. Never lived close enough. https://i.imgur.com/l8yQjRx.mp4

Not sure where to post this. Mods, please move if appropriate. I can figure out how to set a cover picture, but how to I upload a picture to use as my avatar? Ty

The nearest Cabelas is 40 minutes from me. Long drive both ways, but would be well worth it if they can spool up my reels correctly. I'll probably take a trip down sometime this long weekend. I have a strange feeling I'll be buying more than line there. Hard to leave with a heavy wallet whenever I visit a bait and tackle store, and I've never been to a Bass Pro/Cabelas. We'll soon know whether this is user error.