Hooking Concern and 20 minute fishing stint 09-14-

[islandbass]

Nearly skunked, but determination, persistence, and a willingness to change up ( a weakness of mine) were most helpful today.

Headed to the lake on the way to work with only about 25 minutes to fish.

Quickly prepped one spinning and one casting rig for drop shot and a popper respectively.

Started with the drop shot with a 2.5 watermelon sniper snub and worked it the way I usually do, by working the slack, but could only convince the 3 dinks to come out and pay my lure a visit. 12 minutes go by, with nothing.

So I put the spinning rig down and toss the popper around. Nine minutes pass and once again, nothing.

My mind goes into over analysis mode as I begin to pack up my stuff and by the time I finish putting most everything away, it arrives at the conclusion:

1)      I need to go with something that was longer and red. It seems my first pack of Zoom trick worms fit the bill and I quickly nose hook it.

2)      Use a more aggressive method of working the bait, in other words less working the slack and being subtle and more wiggling and jiggling the bait to death.

With barely a minute left, I didn't have the time to make a cast, so I opened the bail long enough to allow what I eyed as enough line to drop the trick worm by the dock.

With my backpack on, my plastics bag on my left shoulder, casting rig in my left hand, and drop shot rig in my right hand, I dropped the rod's tip down to the location I intended along the dock's side. As soon as the weight hit bottom, I wiggled the living dickens out of the worm. For those who might not know, this is one way I do not prefer to use as a first choice when working a bait while drop shotting.

Like a bolt of lightning, a small bass streaked out from under the dock and annihilated the trick worm. She hit it so hard I didn't have to set the hook.

Since it was a small bass, I didn't do a Tiger Wood's fist pump but instead allowed a sigh of relief out that I wasn't going to work empty handed. Ever fish before going to work and not catch anything? It's a crappy feeling. Yeah, she was small, but heck, at least I wasn't going to work skunked.

A Concern about how the Fish was Hooked

After raising the fish up I realized that the hook penetrated well past the bass' hard, palette and was centered between the eyes. It has happened once before and I am a concerned that the hook is harming the fish going all the way through that. This time it was a size 2 gammy and last time a size 2 owner mosquito. Both times the hits were ultra aggressive and now that I had the opportunity to see the bass smash the bait, I know that there was no delay on my part on the hook set (because there wasn't one) to have contributed to it being hooked as it did.

Has anyone else hooked a bass drop shotting where the hook went through the upper palette? Most of the time I see the hook in the corner of the mouth or if it is in the palette, it doesn't go through. Perhaps it is a testament to the sharpness of the hooks, but such piercing power seems excessive to me. What are your thoughts? Is this more common that I suspect or what? Once I caught a perch who hit my 3 senko in such a hard fashion that the offset straight shank hook I was using went through the poor fish's eye! I also saw the hit so there was no late reaction on my part. I felt pretty bad that I might have hurt the fish's chances of survival.

Once again, the drop shot comes through for me.

Conditions: Overcast, best guess 60 degrees

Gear: 2-piece mh compre, 2500 symetre, 2-piece clarus, 201 curado DHSV

Lures: Sniper snub, Zoom Trick Worm, Rapala Skitter pop

Line: 8# vanish (I know! My brother spooled my reel with it so I need to use it up! I am beginning to trust this line less and less) and 12# Yozuri Fluoro

[dodgeguy]

why get so worried about getting skunked in 25 minutes?i've fished 8 hour days with no bites until the last hour.

[Bassn Blvd]

Would you rather have blood drawn with a dull needle or sharp needle?  The sharper the hook the better.   If your worried about taking the hook out the way it went in then cut the shaft and push/pull the hook out.  We all try to minimize the injury to a fish but it is FISHING.    

[islandbass]

Would you rather have blood drawn with a dull needle or sharp needle? The sharper the hook the better. If your worried about taking the hook out the way it went in then cut the shaft and push/pull the hook out. We all try to minimize the injury to a fish but it is FISHING.

That's all I needed to know. Most of my catches have the hook in the corner of the mouth and only recently have I seen hooks go through the palette.  I though that I might be doing something wrong that resulted in the fish being hooked in such a way that they're pierced well through the hard palette, which is why I posted my inquiry here.  It appears that how I hooked the fish is a more common occurrence than I initially thought.

I'll try not to get your panties in a bunch next time.  ;D Thanks!

[Bassn Blvd]

I go commando.......

[islandbass]

I go commando.......

Than I guess you and I have something in common!  ;D