Private pond trip

[done]

Was out this past weekend on a private pond up in the NC mountains. Was hitting them great but having issues with some fundamentals I am hoping folks here will have some insight on.

Had a good C-Rig set up, so I thought. Had consistent issues setting the hook. The plastic worm I had would slide down the hook rather than the hook popping through and hooking the fish. Had 1 work perfectly, the first one, then lost about 5 or six.

Pic of types of hooks (closest I could find anyway)

Any ideas on what I was doing wrong?

Besides that issue though, we caught a TON of LMB. About 5:30 they started hitting and did not stop till we left when the sun went down. After I cast out and missed the pond entirely, I figured it was too dark to continue. LOL.

[paul.]

assuming your hooksetting mechanics were correct, you were rigged right,  and you were not just getting bites from small fish that couldn't get the whole bait in their mouth, here are some possible remedies.

1.  switch to a different style of hook.  r-bend or hp hooks hold the plastics on pretty good and usually keep them from sliding off because of their design.  if the cover is sparse, you could even go with weedless hooks.

2.  instead of burying the hook point in the worm, bring it all the way through and "skin hook" the bait.

3.  switch to braided line, at least for your main line.  you can keep a mono or floro leader if you wanna.  i don't though.  i just use straight superline and carolina keepers.  this eliminates having to tie all those knots and gives you a much better feel because of the uninterrupted line.

4.  make sure the points on your hooks are sharp.  if you are using dull or poor quality hooks, it's not gonna really matter what else you do because you are still gonna lose fish.

5.  use a small barrel swivel to keep your bait from sliding off the hook.  before you tie the hook on thread the line through one end of a swivel so it slides freely up and down the line.  then tie the hook on and put it through the nose of the bait as usual.  before putting the hook point back into the bait, put it through the other end of the swivel.  slide the swivel up so it is snug by the eye of the hook and put your hook back into the bait.    

6.  peg the hook eye in the bait using a toothpick and break off the excess toothpick.  

7.  upgrade to a more powerful rod.  this is obviously the most expensive solution, so i'd try the others before even thinking about this one.

hope that helps.