Football Head Jigs-Having Trouble With Good Hook Sets

[IntroC]

Was doing some smallie fishing the other day with a 1/4 oz footballhead jig(hooks ARE sharp) and a craw trailor and was having a very hard time hooking fish with this set up. I'd feel the hit and set the hook, feel the weight of the fish then nothing. So I switched to a Texas rig with a 1/4oz bullet sinker and it took care of the problem. I would rather be using the football head. Curious if the problem is maybe I'm setting the hook to hard? The only thing I could come up with is that the hard hooksets are popping open the fishes mouth. Is this possible? Open to suggestions. Also I'm using braid.

[smalljaw67]

You are either snap setting or you are setting the hook too hard. Snap setting is when you get the bite and you reel up and then lower your rod before setting the hook, what happens is when you lower the rod it puts slack in the line and when you pull up the jig head actually pops the mouth of the fish open and you either miss it or it gets barely hooked just on the skin of the lip. The same thing if you are using a hard hookset, the jighead will come flying out of the fish's mouth and the hook just gets a little skin on the lip or nothing at all. The way to cure this is to reel in the slack until the rod tip starts to load up and then set the hook, I ill bet that your hook up will drastically improve if you do that.

[ww2farmer]

You are either snap setting or you are setting the hook too hard. Snap setting is when you get the bite and you reel up and then lower your rod before setting the hook, what happens is when you lower the rod it puts slack in the line and when you pull up the jig head actually pops the mouth of the fish open and you either miss it or it gets barely hooked just on the skin of the lip. The same thing if you are using a hard hookset, the jighead will come flying out of the fish's mouth and the hook just gets a little skin on the lip or nothing at all. The way to cure this is to reel in the slack until the rod tip starts to load up and then set the hook, I ill bet that your hook up will drastically improve if you do that.

This.... plus..and it seems to happen with smallmouth way more than LM , but sometimes they just clamp down hard on a bait, and you don't get a good hook into them. One of the better smallie fisherman I know, sets the hook a couple times on deep water jig smallies.

[00 mod]

I agree with the snap setting, but I don't think you can ever set the hook to hard on a jig. Ever seen Big-O's videos? Textbook exaple of how to set the hook with a jig.

Jeff

[steelslinger86]

I doubt you are setting too hard, I cross their eyes, to make sure of good penetration with the heavier wire hooks. You can try thinning down your brush guard, or try some jigs with a different angle on the eyelet. Sometimes the wrong eyelet angle can cause the hook to roll or just pop the fishes mouth open on the hookset.

[BassinMD]

Reel till you feel weight then swing hard, also make sure your rod is stiff enough to pull that hook through , if you don't have enough back none you might not be pulling much line on your hook sets

[gobig]

Mark Zona nailed it. When I first got into throwing big swimbaits I read an article by Bill Siemantle and Mike Jones explaining hook sets. At the beginning of the article they mentioned that less then 10% of bass fishermen used a reel set in day to day fishing. In the article they did testing on the various hook sets and the PSI (pounds per square inch) generated by each. There are several factors that come into play, spool size, gear ratio, line type and rod length. With the right combination there is an obvious advantage. As mentioned in other posts this is something I have applied to most techniques. Below is a quote from the article. I would post a link but It wont let me. If you want to find the article you can google "reel force the right stuff."

For example, with a 4.7:1 gear ratio, the Calcutta 400 takes up approximately 20 1/4 of inches line with each revolution. At a distance of 80 feet, this delivers 11 to 13 pounds-per-square-inch (psi) of force on a combination rod/reel-set (with five full revolutions). A normal hookset (sweeping the rod only) creates between 5 and 5 1/2 psi. It doesn't take a math major to see that a reel-set is a better deal.

[bigbassctchr101]

Are them just bigger than average fish or does Big O's rod have a very parobolic bend? It looks a lot more like the action on my swimbait rod? Is that better?

[00 mod]

He does use a mod/fast rod. It is specifically the St. Croix Rage rod 7'11'' Heavy Mod/fast

Jeff

[Bassfishing375]

Great video i learned a lot, i have a question what other jigs do you do the reel hook set?

[smalljaw67]

Great video i learned a lot, i have a question what other jigs do you do the reel hook set?

You do that typically with bigger jigs, usually 3/4oz and up. The football head is different because it is wide and the shape makes it easy to pull out of a fishes mouth.

[JKarbo214]

This was all very helpful. I've never tried the reel hook set. Looking forward to trying it. Just to clarify, you're simply continuing to reel in the jig until you feel the fish pulling on it the other way, then you set the hook while continuing to reel in?

[Hi Salenity]

Was doing some smallie fishing the other day with a 1/4 oz footballhead jig(hooks ARE sharp) and a craw trailor and was having a very hard time hooking fish with this set up. I'd feel the hit and set the hook, feel the weight of the fish then nothing. So I switched to a Texas rig with a 1/4oz bullet sinker and it took care of the problem. I would rather be using the football head. Curious if the problem is maybe I'm setting the hook to hard? The only thing I could come up with is that the hard hook sets are popping open the fishes mouth. Is this possible? Open to suggestions. Also I'm using braid.

What line are you using ? FC? does this problem happen the most on long casts? If you are loosing fish on long casts with FC tie the stuff to a tree and then walk back to the length you can cast and see how much stretch it has. You may be surprised in what it takes to get the stretch out .

I LOVE FC but if I'm casting a jig with a big hook I always have a lot better hookups with braid! Now if I could just tell if I was getting a bite

[Bassfishing375]

You do that typically with bigger jigs, usually 3/4oz and up. The football head is different because it is wide and the shape makes it easy to pull out of a fishes mouth.

Thanks