Had a couple of frustrating days when not hooking fish properly.  Rig is a Nitro stealth 3/0 1oz jighead with a 4" zman paddler.

 

Getting plenty of hits but a lot of them turn into nothing.  Had a couple on the weekend where I had the fish on for 7 to 10 seconds and it was peeling line etc. but would then just drop off.  Only thing I can think of is the rod I was using had a reasonably light tip and maybe the hook wasn't penetrating well enough but other than that only thing I can think of is that the fish were just grabbing the tails and not being aggressive.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Cheers

As the fish nibbles I relax my rod holding hand let the tip drop down and fwd with the nibbles until the rod is inline with the line. Then strike by doing a few things at once:

 

I have been finding that a lot of the strikes happen when I am at the top of the lift so there is limited ability to strike anyway so the sideways movement might work well and I guess then winding down hard and striking again may be the way to go to ensure the hook is set.  Will also switch to a stiffer rod and see what happens there.

 

I already wind with the left, do that on my strayline sets for the same reason.

 

Lets say you are at the top of the lift and then get a nibble or strike, do you then drop the rod tip and let the fish keep mouthing/running with it and then strike/wind/lift once the pressure comes back on?

 

True, it was around the full moon on the weekend and the bites were generally soft, have also found it in the past but did seem to be worse on the weekend.

 

Snapper weren't big either only around the 40 to 45cm mark but it felt like the ones I did loose were better models hence why my first thoughts were I wasn't penetrating the jaw very well.

 

Tried squashing down the barb too but didn't seem to make much difference.

 

Fishing was around Motuora and back a little towards Tiri.

I use 1/0 as well. Find 3/0 too big. Not sure the fish care but I don't like them on a 4" lure. This weekend I was hooking alot of fish around the mouth using a 1/0. Other days they'll inhale the lure. On Sunday, I started playing around with a 1/8 oz, size 1 hook with 10lb trace and 3.75" lures. It worked better than anything else catching the most and the biggest. I had more problems getting the hook out of the fish than into them. I'll definitely be ordering more.

Could just be lots of smaller fish?

Could also be just plain bad luck too.

I had difficulty setting the hook with a spin reel, found with an overhead locking down the drag and striking far easier.

 

Defintily try using a worm hook and a ball sinker, it does result in a better hook up rate

 

 

As guys have said it can be the day, it happens.

 

In terms of striking hard I refrain from that, as often if you "lift" on a fish and it's not hooked you can drop the rod tip and get him on the second go.

If you strike hard it moves the softie out of his strike zone if not time zone if he doesn't stick.

 

I have had days when you feel the bite or enquiry and count to three then lift the hook in and they just won't stick if you go any faster.

Not very often but often enough that I will try this if I'm not getting fish to stick.

 

I had a slow start the other day and opted for Kavemans micro's and I was getting the odd small snap and my mate was just getting tugs on his softies (he's a very onto it fisher).

 

Later when the bite came on you could have caught fish with a rag on a hook as long as you fished for the snapper in the mid water.

Fun times.