Setting the hook/ what'd I do wrong?

[musky_tail05]

I just got back from Cass lake and, needless to say, I'm a bit frustrated. My dad and I were out at about 8:15 last night and decided to give it one final shot for muskies. I decided to mess around with my Jackpot for a bit. It was fairly calm, and we were watching some lightning in the distance when I look at my bait (about 10 feet from the start of the retrieve) and in a big swirl, it's gone. I feel the weight of the fish, and tried to set the hook in a moment of utter shock. I get the fish next to the boat and she dives straight down, so I hit the thumb bar and give her some slack. I felt the fish's head shaking, then all of a sudden, slack line...and my Jackpot (still attatched) floats to the surface. I didn't try to horse the fish up, instead I just fed it line when it ran and reeled slack when it didn't. Should I have "double setted" the hook? Or would it have been better to just horse the fish in? This would have been my first muskie, and we figured it was atleast 40 to 45 inches.

Oh yeah, I lost a bet with my dad. He got his first (39") on the fourth of July, and I told him I was going to get a bigger one on Cass. Now I'm out ten bucks.

[MSRiverdog]

Had one like that on Mille Lacs a few years ago, I was alone except for one of my dog's, the one that went nuts over a small perch. Got the fish, around 40/42 to the side of the boat, German Shepherd going nuts, OH Shirt now what, shook the rod tip and the bucktail fell out of it's mouth. Happy Ending. The buzz is they can bite down that hard and just hold on. Guess that's one of the reasons we love them.

[cliffy]

Who knows???!!!! Muskie fishing is a practice in frustration....could have, should have...we all have been there a time or two. Keep plugging away and they will come. Good luck to ya.

[bigbritt]

sounds like you went muskie fishing, we all have lost fish like that at one point. Next time don't freespool the fish, musky have very hard mouths and sometime the hook doesnt dig in enough, so any slack line and a head shake will free it no problem. Always keep you reel in gear and have a tight line. play around with your drag next time, don't crank it all the way, there should be some give for that exact situation. nothing wrong with a fish peeling off some line. good luck

[Random guy]

"so I hit the thumb bar and give her some slack. "

With wooden baits I never give em a chance to get slacked if I can help it. With true wood baits it can be hard to get a solid hook set, the bait won't slide through the teeth and the barbs may not drive in. I'm sure there are many opinions about this but I let the drag do all the work,I set up with tough equipment and back the drag off to cover my errors. You probaly did nothing wrong, she just took a little bit off slack line and used it against you. It could have just as easy snapped/cut you off with no slack and this would be a different topic. It's what they do... @#%&*#% fish.

bigbritt...I guess you are faster on the keys

[fishnutbob]

With the size of a Muskies teeth and with large treble hooks on large baits when they bite down its very hard to drive hooks home double set might help a single hook on a bait like the Eagle Tail buck tail gets more hook ups only one hook to set.

[The Grebe]

Makes sense to me...I hope we have the opportunity to find out tommarrow, we are going on the hunt!

9/8/05... Rats!! Got rained out this morning, was really looking forward to teaming up with the Yeti for a few hours of Muskie hunting.

[musky_tail05]

Thanks for the replies. I think I figured out what went wrong. I failed to mention that right before I freespooled the fish, my drag froze. That combined with a bit of "operator error" lead to me loosing the fish. Oh well, it was still one helluva fight. I really "hate" to admit it, but I think my dad and I both caught the muskie bug. I guess it's just downhill from here.....

[Muddog]

Ok. What do you mean; I hit the thumb bar and gave it slack. I hope it means; I loosened the drag and let it run.

Never give a fish slack.

I've had many, many fish come off the hook in my landing net as soon as it got some slack.

The star drag is a vary easy thing to use.

[musky_tail05]

Muddog- What I meant by giving it slack was that after my drag froze, I hit the thumb bar and kept my thumb on the spool with enough pressure so that the fish slowly took out line. I should have clarified it more I guess. And yes, I do know how to use the star drag on my reel, I'm not THAT much of a rookie. At any rate, I checked my drag and loosened it a bit, hopefully solving the problem.

[Random guy]

You did fine, I have caught many fish and I still managed to screw up every third or fouth fish...consitantly.

Cliffy said it best-"Muskie fishing is a practice in frustration" Next time will be a complete differant story, good or bad we don't know but it will be differant.

[Muddog]

Hey you got the fish to hit your lure. That is a victory all to itself.

I guess what I'm saying is the most important thing on a fishing reel and mostly on reels for big stuf is the drag. Before the first cast you check it and after the hook set you set the drag to the fish. I mostly use my thumb on hook set and use a fairly light drag at the start of the fight and the tighten it as the fish starts to tire.

If the fish can't take out line, somthing has to give.

There is no fish I can think of that is more fun the catch then a good size Esox. A large Bass will almost always pull away from you. A good size Esox you never know what they will do. It could dart away and fly out of the water testing your drag. land and then dart straight at the boat testing your reelin speed. They most definately keep you on your toes.

[RK]

Hiya,

Well, you probably didn't do a thing wrong. Sometimes they just never get hooked. Hooksets are the part of the deal we have almost no control over - you have no idea how the fish has the bait, and what will bury the hooks on one fish will pull them out on the next. Compare casting hooking percentage to trolling, where my hookup rate is probably 95%... You just set and hope for the best. A lot of the time I think they hook themselves. I used to have some really spectactular hat-stomping, rod throwing meltdowns over missed fish, but eventually just sort of realized that in the end it all evens out. You miss four in a row (my record is *11*), then catch the next 5 that hit. Now I just sort of shake it off and keep casting (although a big fish will still have me slumped over my pedestal seat once in a while).

The other big thing is good hooking lures. Part of my lure selection process is this question: "of all the lures that could work in this situation, which one hooks the best..." I'm pretty aggressive about weeding out poor hooking baits. I hardly use Suicks in heavy weeds anymore, because a Sledge will do the same thing, and it hooks a lot better. I love Burts, especially squirrley Burts (fish really head-hunt them for some reason) because they're narrow and hard plastic, and I think they're the best hooking jerkbait around. There are some glide baits I refuse to throw because their hooking % is soooo bad. Walk the dog topwaters are probably the worst hooking percentage baits there are though. About the only one I'll use is a Stidham's z-180. I can get dang near every fish that actually hits those (as opposed to just blowing up on it). Jackpots - I can't hook fish with them to save my life. I don't even own one anymore... But I know guys who are deadly with them... Matter of retreive techique I suppose.

Bottom line - sometimes you just plain miss the things...

Cheers,

RK

[The Grebe]

I hav'nt been fishing for awhile (Sore back) did'nt know if I could handle casting Muskie sized baits, but last evening I figured I'd give a north metro muskie lake a try and see what happened.

I had on a 7" no name, Rebel type of swimming minnow, that I got from JR's, in the perch color. I get to the lake, find a nice looking open area that afforded casting room, whipped the plug out there about 361 yards ( Ok, ok, maybe 20 yards) and waited for the ripples to settle down.

Twitched it the first time to get it to gurgle, a second time and on the third, gurgle, about 3 1/2 feet of serious muskie, came blasting out of the water and hit the bait a solid shot to starboard!

I cranked back on that rod and all I got for my efforts was

a coil of powerPro and my plug about 10 feet from shore! The way that fish hit, I was sure I had it dead to rights?

The lure had teeth marks from the center hooks back and I still missed that thing? Those hooks are so sharp, if you look at them to long, one of your eyes will start to bleed!

I don't know? I quick switched lures to a big old Jitterbug, something entirely different and I work the whole shore, switching lures as I went and taking only 2-3 casts at each spot, but I did'nt have any more action.

I think I'll pop a couple of Advil and go try them again tonight, maybe fishing in the wet will produce something and maybe this time I'll be able to get the hooks in em?

10/4/05...Nothing doing in the rain...seen a big fish jump, but did'nt make it, only caught part of it.

Little 90 pound woman walking about a 200 pound Wrott and the dog gave me some menacing looks and body language!

I would have been in with the Muskies had that dog decided to hang glide that woman and take a run at me, thats for sure! Lightning finally chased me off.

[porterhouse]

You did nothing wrong. Thats muskie fishing!!!!!!!!!! When I started muskie fishing I had problems losing fish at boatside. Then I switched to 8FT rods and my percentage of boated fish has gone up in the last 2 years.

R.K. is right on about useing lures that have high percentage for hookups.

Brian

[Muskydanno]

Thats musky hunting!! I was beating myself up this summer over the 13 fish i have lost at boatside from the beginning of june to the end of july (yep you read right, 13), and then proceeded to land a bunch in a row. What changed? didn't really have an idea honestly , i just think your keeping a fish on depends on what mood the musky gods are in any given day and like was said above , keeping good hooking percentage lures in the water. When i look back on it there was a lure change that i made that did the trick.Hopefully there won't be a repeat performance like that this fall. My net ratio was 8 out of 21 through august.Man i love this sport!! I know have a marquee as my screensaver that says it best as i read it off one of these forums "musky fishing is humbling, its funny how a fish with a brain the size of a slip sinker can make a grown man look like an (Contact US Regarding This Word)"!