Setting The Hook

[PeasantoftheVise]

Hi All,

 

I am looking for your input on how you set the hook when nymphing.

 

Here is what I find:

1. When dry fly fishing I have never had a tendency to pull the fly away from a rising fish and generally have a very good hook up ratio.

2. With nymphing I tend to pull up quite quickly on the line when I suspect a hit (based on the indicator going under...note some days I wait until the indicator is fully submerged (about 6"-12") and on others I hit as soon as the indicator moves a little.

3. In cases where there is no fish (maybe a I hit a small twig, the bottom, etc...) the line has a tendency to go rocketing over my head. This generally results in a well hooked tree and the loss of several flies.

4. In cases where there is a fish, then I get a good hook set. Note: I have never snapped off setting the hook in this manner.

 

I am more than a little tired of decorating trees with flies and would welcome your input on how to improve my technique. I am also a little concerned that the noise of pulling the line out of the water might put some fish down so any tips you can give me on how to get better would be very much appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[birchy]

I don't think you need to set the hook that hard to get a good hookset.. with nymphing, usually by the time you see the strike indicator move the fish already had it in their mouth and a short twitch upwards will get a good hookset.

 

In one of McLennan's books he says that if you set the hook and there's no fish there, ideally you should still be able to continue your drift without having to re-cast.

 

I remember reading that article where they had the guy underwater with scuba gear, watching the fish while guys were nymphing, and even very proficient nymph fisherman were missing 50% of the takes because the indicator doesn't even move.. so if you're waiting for the indicator to go completely under.. you're probably missing alot of fish.

 

Moral of the story.. give it a short quick twitch everytime the indicator does something that looks anything that doesn't look like a natural drift (I need to work on this myself.. ALOT) and you'll catch alot of fish you didn't think were there.

[maxwell]

hey dude u might be hitting it a little too hard...try too strip in line and lift the rod at teh same time when striking..striking more too the side or downriver will help keep the flies out of teh bush....try too keep your rod tip low too the water while your in teh drift (around a foot off the water) too reduce the tendancy too lift the rodtip way up and past your head..keep at it dude!

[reevesr1]

VicePeasant,

 

Had the same problem myself. Spoke with and watched some of the gurus here and now I try to quickly but slightly lift the rod while at the same time quickly stripping (more like popping) in a bit of line. But you HAVE to do this as soon as you see anything. Don't wait for it to go under. If it twitches, hit it. If a fish is there, hook is set. If not, drift continues, a little closer to you than it was before. If it comes into slack water, recast (or at least I do). If not, just let it continue.

 

Edit: I put this in while Max was answering. He is one of the guru's I was referring to.

 

A quick, funny story:

I learned to fly fish mostly nymphing. Last year when I made my first dry fly trip to the Livingstone, I was having a hell of a time keeping fish on. I would hook them, but loose them pretty quickly. I may have broken off once. I was getting extremely frustrated because I was missing a LOT of fish. Anyway, Max was there guiding one of my work clients. We meet up with him much later in the day. He caught a ton, the client caught a ton, my friend caught a ton, I caught like 6 (which I know isn't that bad, but I missed at least three or four times that many). Anyway, Max says "let me see what you are doing" There was probably a meng or a dude in there somewhere, I forget. So Max puts himself on top of a cliff and starts directing me to fish. It's about 6 in the evening and they are not really cooperating. After 15 or 20 drifts and 3 fly changes, one finally comes up and takes. After a couple of seconds (God Save the Queen) Max says "now" just as I am already setting the hook. I get a solid hookup and the cuttie comes right to surface, and then he is off.

 

Max climbs down the hill and says "I know what the problem is. Your timing was good, but did you see the way he came right back to surface after you set the hook? Yeah, he didn't want to do that. You may want to stop it with the saltwater hookset."

 

As it turns out, that was easier said than done as I have 40 yrs of saltwater hookset in me. But it's getting better!

[Hawgstoppah]

VP. For nymphing, you sound like your using the style I teach (or taught anyway) and that's banging the hell out of everything that even twitches your indicator. That's good, trust me. And no, the fish don't spook from your line spalshing the water when your nymphing or I woulda never caught a dang thing, and I got my fair share. I was probably the noisiest nympher the river had ever seen at the time too. I guess it all depends on the water you in though, becuase if it's slow deep stuff they might spook, and if it's riffley, there not going to. So I'd say... adjust your angle's so that you have nothing behind you, or wade out a bit so you have nothing behind you and can make shorter casts into the fishy water... and keep at what your doing. if that's not possible, try the things like strip setting (rod tip low, strip a yard of line when you see any movement on indy if it stays down smash it with a hookset).

[reevesr1]

So the last couple of days I've been playing with a Titanium rod. One thing I found is it is pretty soft, so I did not feel like I was getting as much power when fighting the fish. In the last two days, I lost more fish than in the last month. Most of them when they were close and below me (all hooked upstream). Do any of you adjust your hookset and/or fighting method depending on rod? More/less side pressure, harder hookests, etc?

[PeasantoftheVise]

Thanks for all the input guys...it seems that everyone has a slightly different approach--heave ho vs quick short lift.

 

I have been experimenting with more of a strip approach to minimize the "tree decorations" the past couple of times out and have been much better at being able to continue a drift after a set. Still there is a huge tendency to give her the old heave ho.

 

Rickr, I also wonder about the impact that your rod stiffness has on your ability to set the hook as I often find myself with lots of line on the water (s curves) to allow for a natural drift. Thoughts?

[snakeman]

I lift up fairly hard on every twitch. If it was a fish, the hook is set, if there's nothing there the rig falls in front of me and I just roll it out again. I set the hook once on nearly every drift. That may sound excessive but it works.

[reevesr1]

Rickr, I also wonder about the impact that your rod stiffness has on your ability to set the hook as I often find myself with lots of line on the water (s curves) to allow for a natural drift. Thoughts?

 

Don't think that line on the water is an issue. My casting, in a word, sucks. So I tend to concentrate on water close to the bank, use short casts, and fish directly upstream a lot. Honestly, I rarely have more than 25 or 30 feet of line on the water and quite often more like 10 or 15 feet.

 

I don't think that with the softer rod I'm not setting the hook hard enough. That's my theory for now anyway?

[headscan]

Don't think that line on the water is an issue.

 

If you have more slack line on the water than you can tighten with your hook set motion, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to set the hook. You could try lifting/sweeping the rod and giving a good strip at the same time to hopefully take all the slack out. This might also help if you think you're missing sets with the softer rod. Just be careful not to jerk the line so hard that you pull the fly right out of the fish's mouth.

[Hawgstoppah]

Just be careful not to jerk the line so hard that you pull the fly right out of the fish's mouth.

 

Not too sure this is possible on a nymphing hookset. I mean, if you set slow these bow river fish that have seen thousands of flies have spit yours by the time you set up on it. I say set fast and set hard, you'll find out how many fish you've been missing folks. 90% of my clients hardly had to change anything, except for their hooksets, to increase their Bow river success by triple or more.

[Lundvike]

I try to set on every movement of the indicator. sometimes it takes a dumb fish to get me in the habit. As for continuing the drift afterwards its just not a big deal to recast so hit hard imo.

[Guest bigbadbrent]

Rick, fishing with you yesterday, i think your hooksets are fine, it won't change with the rod. It's the couple seconds after the hooksets that you're having problems with. That rod has lots of give, and bounces a bit, so when you get that hookset, it almost rebounds into giving the fish a bit of slack (i dunno, it's a wierd rod!)... I'd be setting the hook, and have that rod horizontal as soon as you know that fish is on, side pressure always wins anyway.

 

Try not hooksetting up, but hookset to the side.

[hydropsyche]

There is some great advise here. Hawgstoppa is right in that if you set hard and often, a newbie will hook up more (as I did) but I think after a while, a person learns to do the quick "hit. Is that fish?" as opposed to the "slam. duck. Tree hook". One thing I learned from Brian is to set often. Repeat: set often (and get the weight/depth right). The one thing I'm not doing as much is the saltwater/Bass hook set. If I'm not in the tree behind me, I'm hopelessly tangled.

 

Maybe I'm long-distance-releasing a few more fish because of that, but conversely, the more time your nymph spends in the water, the less time you're dealing with rats nests. I hate rats nests.

[PeasantoftheVise]

Hi All,

 

I have been experimenting more with my hookset and have decided that I will try to lay off a little on the strength of the pull by moving the rod a lot less and increasing the strip. This has been working quite well but the trees don't look quite as colourful.

 

I have to agree that setting often is the key, I was down at favourite hole today and decided to set the hook anytime I saw any movement on the indicator. And lo and behold if it didn't yield a couple of smaller bows. I would not have normally even known that these fish were on the line.

 

Thanks for all the advise!

 

I still have lots to learn and appreciate everyone who has chimed in.

[maxwell]

great bunch of responces!...a few points brought up i wanted too mention were..line on the water..the more line on the water the more resistance you get when striking..so the farther the fly is away frmo you the harder you should be striking...if there is slack in the line the "strip-set" like mentioned above helps.......for rod stiffness i find faster rods tend too pick up more line with less effort . you dont halfto lift the rod higher or farther back too strike compared too a slower rod...as for rod length i find the longer the rod the easier it is to get good leverage and speed when picking up line and striking..even going from a 9' too a 9'6" makes a huge difference in ease of mending and hooksetting past 20-30 feet.....

[Hawgstoppah]

..even going from a 9' too a 9'6" makes a huge difference in ease of mending and hooksetting past 20-30 feet.....

 

Might be why my bow river weapon of choice is a 10 foot 6 weight brutha!!

[lonefisher]

10 ft 6 wt is a deadly hook setter Hawgs got that right. I also subscribe to the set fairly hard theory but you gotta know when to stop the hookset. Either because something is there or nothing is there. I find that with a bit of experience you can feel in your rod hand when you have set hard enough and at that point it is simply a matter of stopping the hookset and maintaining that pressure if a fish is on. I wish I could explain the smash n sweep that i use to keep the flies outta the bush on missed hooksets but it is not an exact science and occaisionally ends up in tangles of another kind..... Looks pretty ugly I bet but if it keeps me outta the bush...... Its kinda like throwing a late snake roll into the hookset when you realize that you have set to hard and the flies are about to pass over your head...... when it works it can set you right into a roll cast. When it goes horribly wrong....... you grab your nippers LOL

 

PS not a pro (unless we are talkin bullshit artist)

[PeasantoftheVise]

Okay everyone I have been trying this strip set/softer hookset for a while now and would like your opinion on this observation. Why is it that I am now ldr'ing a lot of fish? The other day I hooked into and fought (for a short period of time, some longer than others even to a point of taking the net off my back) 7 fish before finally landing one. I have found that this was not a one time occurance, as this seems to be the norm. With my old hookset I landed a very high percentatge of all fish--probably in the order of 90%. I have become more mindful of applying side pressure vs upward pressure but is there something I am missing technique wise? Do you need to set the hook more to the side vs up? On the good side though I see alot fewer flying three fly rigs going into the bushes--but sure would like to see a few more of those fish up close and personal like. Thoughts?

[ÜberFly]

Okay everyone I have been trying this strip set/softer hookset for a while now and would like your opinion on this observation. Why is it that I am now ldr'ing a lot of fish? The other day I hooked into and fought (for a short period of time, some longer than others even to a point of taking the net off my back) 7 fish before finally landing one. I have found that this was not a one time occurance, as this seems to be the norm. With my old hookset I landed a very high percentatge of all fish--probably in the order of 90%. I have become more mindful of applying side pressure vs upward pressure but is there something I am missing technique wise? Do you need to set the hook more to the side vs up? On the good side though I see alot fewer flying three fly rigs going into the bushes--but sure would like to see a few more of those fish up close and personal like. Thoughts?

 

Craig,

 

What do you mean by "ldr'ing"?

 

P

[birchy]

Long Distance Release.

[j5ep00]

long distance release

 

edit: i find when applying side pressure they spit the hook easier.

maybe its just me though.

[reevesr1]

I still seem to be LDR'ing a lot of fish in the last several weeks as well. I've also tried to use more side pressure when I fight. Could be coincidence.....

 

Could just be I'm late with the hookset though, I am getting old.

[ÜberFly]

Long Distance Release.

 

Gott'cha!

 

Thanks!

 

P

[lonefisher]

Just a personal opinion but I prefer a strip set when fishing a tight line. However a strip and set is another creature entirely..... handy when fishing a line with a lotta slack......

 

anyways heres how I look at hooksets.... kinda....

 

a rod lift hookset- is just a lift of the rod tip line hand plays no factor---- I basically don't use this cept on short line nymphing..... sometimes

 

regular hooket- lift of the rod tip coupled with a strong pull (or strip if you prefer) with the line hand..... happens simultaneously, what I use most of the time

 

Stripset- a pull of the fly line..... Rod may be lifted during or just after but not really violently- fished on a tight line only for me.

 

Strip and set- A strong pull or strip of the fly line immediately prior to the regular hookset which usually consists of another pull...... I use this one when fishing the slackest presentations like when battleing multiple currents and stuff