Finesse problems

[Drowning A Worm]

Water is cold in the Midwest still, high 40's do I'm doing alot of finesse fishing. I fish alot of dropshots so I thought I'd try something new and fished a shaky head today. Never really got this many bites but I can't hook any fish. Caught 1 out of 10 bites, finally had a really good bite and my knot broke on the hookset. I think it's from my tag end freying. Any tips? Might just shorten my leader and use a barrel swivel or switch back to a dropshot

[Bluebasser86]

Going to need a lot more info to help you out here. What rod/reel/line/shakyhead/bait were you using? How and where were you fishing it and how were you setting the hook?

I can't fish a shakyhead much anymore, but when I get to my hookup percentage is generally pretty good unless I'm getting pestered by dinks or sunfish. 

[Master Bait'r]

If you're getting a ton of action and no hookups, it's likely being battered by short fish, maybe even panfish.  They're also beating up your line, because they grab it at the head and try to swim away- you try to set the hooks and it rips it out of their mouth since they never had the hook anyways.  That way when the one decent fish comes along and takes it, she snaps.  

 

 

[smalljaw67]

If you broke your line on a hook set with fluorocarbon it could have been the knot, fluorocarbon doesn't fray easily. Another thing is the hook set,  I use a shaky head a lot for finesse and over the years the best hook up and landing percentage comes from just tightening the line and a firm upward lift, that is where the lighter hook works well as it penetrates with just pressure. What happens a lot with that is the fish tend to hit it and sit, they don't run so when you pull back to set the hook you end up doing it on a slack line and that gives you sort of a snap set and it will cause light line to break and also missed fish as you actually pull it away from them. I learned the hard way, I was getting bite and doing a quick pull back hook set and my buddy told me to tighten the line before pulling back and it worked, then when I was just doing the fast lift on the tight line it was even better, it took a little bit of time to break the habit of yanking when I'd get a bite but for some reason the shaky head bite is like the drop shot bite, they often grab the worm by the tail and just barely get the hook in their mouth as a lot of the fish I catch are hooked in the top of the mouth but it is right the edge and if I pulled hard I probably would have missed it.

[Crestliner2008]

Excellent response smalljaw67!

[eyedabassman]

Other than the line problems try down sizing your bait a bit. go to a 4 in. Zoom fish Doctor or a cent. t- they may be grabbing the tail?