Is it me or my tackle

I've been fishing a lot out of my new Shadow Caster, mainly vertical jigging with a variety of Bobby Garland soft plastics and doing well on bites. My problem is I can't seem to hook up very much. I'm using 1/8th oz. jig head with a rather large hook (probably a size 4 maybe) with a 4.6 older Ugly Stik and 4lb Trilene mono line. I get the "tap, tap, tap" on my line, I set the hook and 8 or 9 times outta 10...nothing. Is my jig too big, rod too short or is this a common thing. I'm used to fly fishing for Steelhead where I can see the fish take it for the most part.

Tap,tap,tap sounds like bluegills to me. For me most of the time with crappie if I feel a second thump they spit the jig back out. Bluegill tend to shake the jig, this is the tap,tap,tap.

Also sounds a lot like sand bass. They do the machine gun tap 3-5 times, rapid fire.

Yep that's some kind of Brem. I have had crappie hit like this but not very often. Some days it happens to all of us. Crappie will be one good thump most of the time or your line will jump or go slack.

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Even if it's bluegill or other pan fish I would think I should be doing better than 1 or 2 out of 10 times hooking up, this is every time I've been out lol. I just didn't know if my rod is too soft, line too stretchy etc. I like this little 4.6ft rod but trying my BnM 8ft jigging pole out and see if my ratio changes any, if not, it has to be me lol.

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Originally Posted by floaterguy

Even if it's bluegill or other pan fish I would think I should be doing better than 1 or 2 out of 10 times hooking up, this is every time I've been out lol. I just didn't know if my rod is too soft, line too stretchy etc. I like this little 4.6ft rod but trying my BnM 8ft jigging pole out and see if my ratio changes any, if not, it has to be me lol.

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Bluegill love nothing more than to grab ahold of the tail of your offering and yank it down. I've found the most effective way of catching these "tappers" is to give them slack, or hesitate before setting the hook, when they start this. That usually gets them to get the hook in their mouths. I'd almost guarantee that bluegills are the culprit of your lack of hook up.

A longer rod will help as well. The softer, long tip bends with the "take", improving the odds that the jig hook will be in their mouths. It certainly will not be detriment. I find that with my longer rods, all I have to do is slowly lift to set the hook.

If it is Bluegill, they're likely small .... possibly too small to get your BG plastics in their mouth, easily. When Bluegill attack something bigger than they can easily suck into their mouth, they'll "peck" at it with the intent to "disable" it ... if not outright "kill" it.

A #4 hook is not too big, IMHO. I use a #2 on 1/32 & 1/16oz jigheads (custom made). I've got some with a #4 hook, and I've caught Bluegill on them (when using 1.5" Panfish Assassins), but not when using 2" plastics (regardless of hook size). I get the "machine gun" hits, all the same.

My gut instincts say you're getting hits from Sunfish (pannies ??), rather than Crappie, unless the Crappie are very small. As has already been stated ... a single "tap" is normally a Crappie, whereas a series of "taps" is likely another species. You can simply downsize your jig & plastics, when this happens again, and possibly catch & identify the culprit. :twocents

It also helps if you open the hook up another ten degrees, and also makes for more in the roof of the mouth hook ups. A better fisherman than me taught me to do that about 20 years ago. After taking his advice, my ratio changed greatly.

I seldom think tackle makes a big difference, however, I have some Ugly Sticks and they are great rods but something like a 10 ft B&N graphite crappie jig pole or similar make would increase your odds. The Ugly Sticks don't have the sensitivity of the crappie jig poles and they have more flex that can dampen feel as well.
No need to drop a bundle of money, just pick up one and put your current reel on it and give it a try.
If it is indeed bluegills that are pecking at your jig, go down to a 1/32 with a small tail and see if you start hooking them, then you'll know for sure.
Rooster tail used to make a "Rooster jig" that had a really small treble hook in the tail and it would put a stop to pecking bluegills when trolling. Course it didn't keep them from biting, you just caught a lot more. Unfortunately they don't make them anymore and I don't know of another one that does.

I agree with CrappiePappy.

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Originally Posted by CrappiePappy

If it is Bluegill, they're likely small .... possibly too small to get your BG plastics in their mouth, easily. When Bluegill attack something bigger than they can easily suck into their mouth, they'll "peck" at it with the intent to "disable" it ... if not outright "kill" it.

A #4 hook is not too big, IMHO. I use a #2 on 1/32 & 1/16oz jigheads (custom made). I've got some with a #4 hook, and I've caught Bluegill on them (when using 1.5" Panfish Assassins), but not when using 2" plastics (regardless of hook size). I get the "machine gun" hits, all the same.

My gut instincts say you're getting hits from Sunfish (pannies ??), rather than Crappie, unless the Crappie are very small. As has already been stated ... a single "tap" is normally a Crappie, whereas a series of "taps" is likely another species. You can simply downsize your jig & plastics, when this happens again, and possibly catch & identify the culprit. :twocents

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Went back out today after work and talked to a guy at Fish USA for a bit. He also said more than likely it's sunfish and to slow down my hook set. I used the same set up I've been using on my 4.6 UglyStik and slowed down my hook set and that helped land a couple, I also went down to a 1/16th oz jig head with much smaller hook and that helped too. I also put that same set up on my 8ft BnM jigging pole and I could feel a lot more, didn't hook up much, I was trying not to get mowed over by jet skis and boats lol

Tap. Tap, Tap is an anxiety generator. I just take my meds.

It's not the hook being too big, I would say it's too small.
It also tells me that your in the right color family but just not quite the color they want to inhale.
It could also be that your not setting the hook hard enough or your reaction time.
And bream, stripes, and small crappie do the tap, tap, tap dance.
And I have seen lathargic slabs do the same thing.

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Could be your rods as well. You might want to consider a southern crappie rod. I like the nine footers, but Ed has several lengths.

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Originally Posted by bandchaser

It's not the hook being too big, I would say it's too small.
It also tells me that your in the right color family but just not quite the color they want to inhale.
It could also be that your not setting the hook hard enough or your reaction time.
And bream, stripes, and small crappie do the tap, tap, tap dance.
And I have seen lathargic slabs do the same thing.

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Near most all Ky Lake slabs here are either lethargic or 6 inches long.

You're not going to miss fish like that because of your rod or line... time after time... trip after trip...change your bait and hook size and add an attractant like a nibble or one of the other power baits and catch a few of them so you know what you're dealing with. I use to really have to do this all the time when live bait fishing in the big rivers. You just have to change up until you can finally hook them. It's pretty popular for winter vertical fisherman in the rivers to add a stinger treble hook on a short line off the bait to catch light biting fish when its cold. Fish mouth around on the bait they jerk and catch them with the stinger.

Not sure but little taps can be anything . If it's constant and you don't hook fish it's likely they are small ones .

Everything sounds just fine, just little fish hitting. You could stick a small jighead with a #6-8 hook on there (maybe with a smaller plastic) and see if you can't stick a few of the bream.

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Originally Posted by smoothlures

Everything sounds just fine, just little fish hitting. You could stick a small jighead with a #6-8 hook on there (maybe with a smaller plastic) and see if you can't stick a few of the bream.

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I really think Lake Erie (and the city itself) is just the crap hole of everything. The few fish I caught yesterday would barley fit in the palm of my hand. I've caught a few decent larger pan fish but 98% of them have been on the small side. I have a friend who was a professional angler and he said to rig a trailer hook like I do with some flies I tie and said that I will hook up a lot more, I know it works for Steelhead so I tied some on tonight.