Have you ever noticed how fish that deliver the hardest strikes on a worm or jig in shallow water are often the most likely to come unhooked before you get them to the boat? With top-quality rods and lines as sensitive as they are today, you might want to make adjustments in the timing of your hookset, depending on the information that the fish transmits to you via the strike.

Over the course of several seasons, Alabama FLW Tour pro Matt Herren noticed he was losing a lot of his hardest strikers – fish that he calls "line jumpers – and couldn't come up with a good reason for the phenomenon.

"What became clear was most strikes that produced a hard thump were on crawfish-imitating baits," he said. "I looked at the rod, the line and the lure I was using every time I lost a fish, trying to find a common cause. Was I setting the hook too hard? Was I setting it too quick? Was the rod I was using too stiff?

"I checked my hooks and every other possible cause I could think of. After evaluating everything, I couldn't find a solution."

Springtime Revelation

It all became clear to him one spring day when he was working on his sight-fishing skills.

"While watching and feeling the bedding bass hit my baits, I was able to see both the cause and solution to my problem," he said. "The primary cause was the way the fish struck and took the lure. By watching the fish, I could see what I was feeling on the very hard strikes.

"On any type of worm or jig, when I felt a hard tick, the fish had hit the head of the lure and had taken it into its mouth headfirst. No problem, right?

"Wrong! Texas rigs that are pegged and jigs that go in headfirst must rotate 180 degrees before the hook can penetrate the fish's mouth, resulting in poor hook-ups. The other cause is the equipment I use today is so sensitive that there's no delay from the time a strike occurs and the time I feel it."

Hold Your Horses

Armed with that new information, Herren started to delay his hooksets on fish that delivered the hardest strikes on worms or jigs. The result was fewer lost fish.

"By understanding what was happening and allowing the fish to have the bait longer, I've been able to land more fish," he said. "Don't panic – the fish won't drop your bait. The extra time will allow the fish to get the bait farther back in its mouth, allowing more time for it to rotate on the hookset."

Your instincts will tell you to rear back and jerk when you feel that thump. But if you can hold off, you'll see an increase in your hooked-to-landed ratio.

"I'll usually wait 3 to 5 seconds," he said. "You just need to hesitate a little bit and give them a chance to suck it in."