By Jonathan LePera
Special to BassFan


Over the past several decades, the bass fishing community has witnessed an evolution in the quality of rods, reels and line. The result has been the death of the slack-line hook set and the emergence of the reel-setting technique.

Executing proper hook setting mechanics are imperative to consistently getting fish into the boat, whether it’s in a tournament or while out with a fishing buddy.

Rippin ‘Em … Literally

David Kilgore might fish the Southern Opens, but he’s hardly trying to test his mettle. He’s among the cream of the crop, having qualified for the Elites on three separate occasions. Once he got serious about his fishing, he realized that his hook-setting mechanics needed to be in top form.

The consensus on hook sets has primarily been that once a bite is detected, a fast and vengeful motion is needed to drive the hook home.

Standing 6 feet, 9 inches tall and weighing 260 pounds, Kilgore has enough power to put a hook through a 2-by-4 if he so desires, but he shakes his head at such logic. After all, he’s a converted man himself.

While fishing a river around his Alabama home during the pre-spawn, both he and his partner set their trolling motor on low and eased their way up to a mat 1 1/2 mes the size of this boat and Power-Poled down, knowing it held a good fish or two.

The first fish jumped on the bait he flipped and he swung hard, resulting in a 7-pound largemouth flying out of the mat shortly after. Seconds later, the fish was but a distant memory, having spit the hook, as was the 6-pounder he lost on the next flip.

He had an epiphany of sorts upon hooking a 7 1/2-pounder later in the day.

“I jacked it and it moved it a lot,” he said, “and suddenly felt 5 inches of slack, then momentarily felt the fish again before netting it.”

Upon further inspection, Kilgore realized that his first hook set tore a 2-inch hole in the soft-tissue of the fish’s mouth and the hook point caught the lip on the way out.

“The inside of their mouths, in the winter and the hot summer, is very sensitive and not very strong,” he noted. “I don’t try to break their neck. I just try to get them hooked and get them out.”

To achieve that, he reels down until he feels the pressure of the fish and pulls back on it while getting it out of harm’s way quickly.

With Age Comes Wisdom

After winning the Forrest Wood Cup in 2009 and the 2014 Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year title, it’s fair to say Greg Hackney has amassed a little bit of fishing wisom over the years. While no one would ever accuse him of having a weak hook set, he’s learned that mechanics trump raw power when putting fish in the boat.

“Early on, the biggest mistake that I’ve made is rushing the hook set,” Hackney said. “Now, every time I get a bit, I make sure that everything is right. I do a better job when I actually take the slack out of the line and feel the fish get tight before I set the hook, regardless of the technique.“

He shudders to think of the dollars lost due to exaggerated hook sets that resulted in straightened hooks and broken line. Hackney suggest anglers be more deliberate when they feel the bite – the fish is not going to let go of the bait. He points to numerous times during pratice that he’s tried to shake fish off that refuse to let go. Yet, during the tournament, the fish would rob him of the bait or get off on the hook set.

“When I put a little pressure on those fish, if they didn’t have it that well, it would cause them to crush the bait,” he said. “They can’t reason that there’s a fisherman on the end of their line. What they’re thinking is whatever they’ve caught is trying to get away so rather than blow it out, they’ll crush it.”

Hackney’s process involves retrieving the slack and taking the stretch out of the line during the early part of the hook set. He’ll let the fish load up the rod and the instant everything gets tight and the fish starts to pull, he’s swinging the rod across his body and following through while turning with his waist and upper body.



BassFan
Photo: BassFan

For Greg Hackney, every hook set is all about being consistent and not jerking too suddenly.

Indeed, it all unfolds quickly. He prefers a cross-body hook set because swinging overhead doesn’t facilitate a proper follow through and the resulting leverage.

“Many times, guys don’t follow through on their hook set, they’re doing a sudden jerk and they stop,” he said. “Being entirely tight on that fish, when I move that rod 3 feet, I’m moving something 3 feet. I’m getting all of it and I’m able to move that hook deeper than before.

“If I swing on one and miss him, I’ll spook him to the point that he won’t bite again. So I wait a little longer. If he spits out before I get the hook set, chances are, he’ll get the chance to bite again.”

Get Your Gear Straight

One would think that after winning seven Bassmaster Angler of the Year titles and four Bassmaster Classics, Kevin VanDam would have all the answers. Instead, he’s intrinsically motivated to figure out and dissect every success, every failure, and especially every lost fish.

“You know when you go through a tournament and you miss or lose fish, for me, I’m analyzing what went wrong, what could I have done to make a difference in that situation,” he said. “Sometimes there’s nothing and sometimes there is.”

Being aware of what your lure is doing at all times is key.

“The second that fish bites, the clock is ticking,” VanDam added. “The classic example is making a long cast with a heavy football jig, it gets down on the bottom, and you start dragging it along and you feel that bite. Because you have a lot of distance to that lure and you have a heavy lure that the fish can get a lot of leverage and throw, it’s so important to not set the hook. A high speed reel comes in handy when you’ve really got to let the rod load before you set.”

He cautions anglers that because the graphite is so much more sensitive, the reels faster, and the hooks more advanced, if anglers are going to continue with exaggerated hook sets while using braid and fluorocarbon, something will break.

“I work really close with Mustad and their Ultra Point (hook) was developed to be not only needle sharp at the point, but from a penetration pressure standpoint, designed to penetrate past the barb by design and to have the most durable point in rough conditions,” VanDam said. “Having a sharp hook is just part of the equation. The other part of it is the strength of the hook and how it’s built so that you can complete that process when you set the hook.”

VanDam pointed to his longstanding relationship with Quantum. Since his signature series line of tackle is uniform and designed to his specifications, he’s able to fine-tune his mechanics more easily.

“I’ve preached this since day 1. If you are brand-loyal, their rods are going to have the same type of balance, same handle lengths, and same tapers in the blanks.” VanDam said.

Deciding on what tackle works best for you is a personal choice as per each situation. VanDam stresses that anglers must be consistent and refined in their approach and execution when setting the hook.

“The biggest thing you do no want do at any time is allow the fish any slack line at any stage of the hook set, the fight or landing process, too,” VanDam said. “Keep in mind the distance of the cast from the boat, the cover that is there, the water clarity – they all factor into your overall equipment choice.”

Any angler who’s lost a fish know it’s a tough thing to shake off. VanDam said a short memory is vital.

“The biggest mistake I see is that when people miss or lose a fish, they let it affect the next opportunity,” he said. “Whether it’s having a fit, breaking a rod or getting all flustered, when you have something go wrong, there’s not a thing you can do to bring that fish back.

Focus on the lesson to be learned from it so you know for the next time. Be it, ‘I turned my head and I was out of position and it cost me that fish.’ Don’t do that again.”

VanDam pointed to days where you might only get five bites, but they’ll be important ones – staying focused is crucial to success.

A Guide’s Take

Bobby Barrack is a bass fishing legend along the West Coast. Through his guiding, he continually witnesses anglers who struggle with their execution.

“You are fishing for the moment,” Barrack said. “These fish do not do re-dos. You either get it right or you are going to get it wrong.”

Barrack’s son, Robbie, clued him into the reel-set technique 15 years ago. Barrack recalled fishing for striped bass one evening using Zara Spooks, getting a big blow up, and every time he would jerk on it, he’d yell to Robbie to duck as the bait came flying back.

“Here’s my 12-year-old kid, walking his bait and provoking blow-ups, and I’d yell at him to swing,” Barrack recalled. “He’d tell me the fish didn’t have it yet. Then the bait disappeared and he’d start to wind and I’d tell him he has to be quicker. Robbie pointed out his five blow-ups and three landed fish. After 11 blow-ups, I’d caught none.”

At the time, Barrack didn’t realize that the stripers hunted in packs. It was flat calm and the scout would come up underneath his bait and put their tail beneath the Spook and create a vortex and suck that bait down. Barrack thought they ate his bait.

Barrack became a reel-set convert and suggests anglers can improve their catch percentage by 25 percent upon converting.

In the embedded video below, Kilgore offers some hook-setting tips for novice frog fishermen and Barrack shows off some dos and don'ts related to hook sets:






“I wind across my body and position my feet so that I can reel from right to left and sweep on the hook set from left to right across my body,” Barrack said.

He keeps the butt of the rod under his left armpit so that when he sweeps, the rod does not get pulled down. That way, he’s able to maintain the load and maintain hook point pressure on the fish.

“If that rod ever comes out from my arm pit, then I’m behind the 8 ball again,” he added.

In his neck of the woods, niche baits and big fish are a way of life. Blowing hook sets isn’t an option.

“If you are at Clear Lake at Henderson Point slow rolling a Huddleston with 20-pound fluorocarbon in 19 to 27 feet of water while bumping key rocks, you’d better be reel-setting when you get bit or you’ll never see one of those fish,” he cautioned.

Barrack’s tone turned serious once the conversation turned toward ChatterBaits. He cautioned anglers throwing a ChatterBait on Lake Okeechobee, Clear Lake, Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend or on the California Delta in March and April, they’d best have their act together. The possibility of enticing a double-digit largemouth is real. Reel-setting on trophy fish, especially, is imperative.

“The ChatterBait is one of the great big fish baits that we have,” he said. “It’s very appealing to giant bass. The way that it pulses, the water displacement, the vibration that that blade creates is such an unbelievable sound that triggers big largemouth.”

So many anglers consistently miss fish that commit to these baits because a largemouth will engulf a ChatterBait from behind and charge the bait towards the boat. The angler must be mentally dialed in, have proper body positioning, and be reeling fast enough to take all of the slack out of the line to get a bow in the rod to set the hook.

Fishing with a swimbait, however, is the complete opposite, Barrack says.

“You will see these dark shadows come behind it from the left or the right for 3 to 6 seconds and she’ll charge because you twitched it,” he said. “To charge, she’ll run to the front of the bait, turn, and charge to exact a head shot eating the bait from head to the tail.”

If an angler is thinking about anything but the moment, that double-digit fish will leave the angler with nightmares.

Without mental focus, bad things can happen fast as not every fish will not strike aggressively. He’ll tell a client to pitch a bait to the left side of three tules grouped together.

“I’m watching the line, the client’s not,” he said. “I watch the tules quiver, the bait stops, the water is 3 feet, the Senko sunk 18 inches and stopped.”

In no time, the fish charges and the line runs across an ear of the prop and they lost the opportunity at a 7- to 9-pound fish. Barrack points out it takes 5 to 7 seconds for the bait to fall in 3 feet of water, and it stopped at the 2 1/2-second mark.

“If an angler even thinks that they have a fish on, start reeling and if nobody is home, that’s okay,” he said.