Thread: Hit after hit but no hookup?

Originally Posted by DockShootinJack

Bluegills can drive a fella nuts trying to get a hook in one

Jack no doubt i was seeing schools of bluegill higher in the water column but most of the images were bigger & close to bottom in deeper water. The sonar images looked like crappie to me like we normally catch but this lake has a lot of small 6" or so crappie in it too.

If you was using a sinker they may have been hitting it. You can down size the bait (not the hook) but if you was fishing green most of the time what I seen is the speed of your bait. You got to play with the speed and the movement but most of the time speeding it up and/or the movement of it helps this time of year. I was having the same problem too...

Yeah, like Slabeye said ... we were getting some really soft tics a lot of the time. I even caught a lot of my fish lifting my jigs off the bottom (after seeing slack line) and the fish were already holding onto the jig. Our day started out with decent thumps, but slowly tapered off to lite tics as the day progressed. I even got to watching the rod tip later in the day, rather than trying to feel the bite. If it bent more than normal lifting two 1/16oz jigs, I set the hook ... and a lot of the time it was fish.

A few of the fish we caught were females, but surprisingly they only had pinky fingernail sized egg sacs. (I was expecting them to be a bit larger than that) And their stomachs were empty. Not sure what's causing their picky mood, but hopefully they'll get the message that cold temps are coming and get a bit more aggressive in their feeding mode.

8 #test braid is equivalent to 4# test mono which in my opinion is necessary to feel the first light strike from a distance. When felt, I slow down, twitching the lure slightly and letting it glide ever so often.

When it come to lures, light jigs do it for me when fish like to play but not commit. 1/64 oz or 1/32 oz using #6 or #8 hooks, depending on lure length, allows the above imparted action to to happen. Too heavy and the pendulum action of the lure as it sinks toward you is too fast. Once fish become excited - especially schoolies - then the ease of hooksets increases big time.

Hook size can be very important. My rule of thumb: no more than half the length of the lure where the hook exits and most of the time, 1/4 the length. Lure action is key/ concentrating a fish's attention on the lure and not the jig is very important!

One thing I discovered by accident: a fish bit off the tail of my curl tail grub, so I figured, why not try casting the body alone? Sho nuff those nippers were nippers no more!!! I even decorated the color using Spike-It pens. That led to more similar designs that caught everything!


Also try very small tubes:


Try it: take the tail off a small grub, rig it on a 1/32 oz jig with #6 or #8 hook and cast it towards the first nip, working it slowly but never with a steady retrieve.

You can thank me after catching a sh load of nippers and eveything else!

In my experience short strikes. Down size your bait.

Originally Posted by slabeye

If you was using a sinker they may have been hitting it. You can down size the bait (not the hook) but if you was fishing green most of the time what I seen is the speed of your bait. You got to play with the speed and the movement but most of the time speeding it up and/or the movement of it helps this time of year. I was having the same problem too...

Rodney I was on cedar creek. I took a neighbor kid there because I didn’t want to fight the wind all day at green but should have went there anyway. Haven’t had this problem at green though so far. For whatever reason I’ve had it happen at cedar creek more than once. I swear off that place & then end up there again if only going for a short trip or don’t want to go to green or Cumberland for whatever reason. I think I’ll stick to it this time. Unless of course I somehow figure it out.

Originally Posted by DrNip

In my experience short strikes. Down size your bait.

This is what I do.

likely mixed fish of similar smaller size and or just a pack of sunfish , as stated go with a smaller offering .
I encounter that sometimes myself and just keep going smaller till I can make them pay with lip tissue ....
and or move to another location if it gets out right ridiculous ....