Interesting article on hooksets

[pro reel]

Originally Posted by Bassboss

Ok guys, I'm sorta confused now. lol.

I read somewhere else (maybe here), that when you set the hook with a jig, drop slack in your line, and set on the slack line. It said the sudden jerk, rather then the sudden consistent pressure (like you'd see when most us guys set the hook), quickly sticks the hook into em, rather then pulling to hook in em.

I can't remember the exact reasoning they had for it, but it seemed very convincing at the time.

Now I'm reading this and it's saying just kinda lean into em, and pull the hook in em... that is if I'm understanding this stuff right.. am I? lol

Sam, It really is going to depend on what bait you are using. With the vast majority of baits, you will want or need to set the hook with as much force as is possible. The do that, you will find that if you drop a little slack in your line and then jerk the line tight, you will get more force. But please don't believe me or anyone else here. Anytime you read any the stuff we post, you should examine it and see if you can confirm it or disprove it for yourself somehow before you accept it as fact or probablility. To do that, take a bait like a spinner bait, one you can hold without the hook point being against your skin, have someone set about the right distance away from you that would expect to be average distance and then have them set the hook while you hold the bait. Try it both ways. You will see that there is a lot more force with the slack line snatch. Now, what the pro said in the video may be absolutly true for the bait he was fishing. If it had a very thin wire hook, it would be likely that setting the hook hard would be causeing him to miss fish but that the fish could hook themselves by just swimming against a tight line. In that instance, he is relying on the fish to hold the bait long enough for that to happen. He must be using some good scented bait because most of the time the bass I catch will spit the bait out if I don't cross thier eyes pretty darn quick. Another instance where a hard hook set is wrong would be of you were using circle hooks. Circle hooks are designed to slide to the corner of a fish's mouth and hook there without a hard hookset. I have used thin wire hooks and I have used circle hooks. I found that if you remeber to never jerk to set the hook, they will work. I am not good at that. I taught myself to drop a little slack in the line and then cross thier eyes. Thats how I do it and I don't have time to think about doing it differently with a thin hook or a circle hook. Therefore I just don't use thin hooks or circle hooks anymore.