Lesson Learned

[CrappieDreamer]

I was night fishing a few days ago and was anxious to try out some new jigs I had made. I dropped a home made green LED submersible light, threw out a minnow under a bobber and started vertical jigging with another pole while trying different color combinations.

At first, the bobber and minnow were out catching the jigs, but then I started doing better on the jigs. I decided to replace the minnow with a similar pattern (but different colors) of the jig I was using on the other pole.

In the boat I just use a simple headlamp, so lighting isn't always the best. I spotted a jig I wanted to try so I put in on and tossed out the slip bobber rig. Not too long after, fish started hitting it, but for the life of me I couldn't set the hook and they kept getting off. I figured maybe it was just a bunch of smaller fish that were just pecking at the hook. The funny thing was that I was catching fish like crazy on my jigging pole.

I finally gave up on trying to get the hook set on the bobber and just left it out in the water, hoping that some less experienced fish would finally lodge itself on my jig by accident. I probably fished for another hour and decided it was time to head to the house. As I was putting the poles away, I made the discovery...

It was at that moment that I remembered snagging a jig earlier in the evening (pre-dusk) but finally managed to retrieve it. The hook was mostly straightened out so I had set it aside and tied on a different jig.

You guessed it, it was that VERY SAME jig I grabbed in the dark and had tied on to my bobber pole. ARGGGGGH!

Who knows how many more fish I would have caught that night!

Lesson Learned!

[Smoore937]

Lol. That sucks!

[MidMsAngler]

Hahaha, that's a good one. If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane!

Reminds me of the time I got into a frenzy of schooling bass and could not stick one for the life of me. Despite multiple strikes per cast. After the mayhem subsided and my blood pressure dropped I noticed that I never took that plastic tube that protects the point off of the spinnerbait! D'oh!


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[scrat]

Always good to check your hooks often while fishing. A dull hook will cause you to lose a lots of fish not to even mention a hook that is almost straightened out like the one you mentioned. Good rule of thumb for hook sharpness is when raking it over the thumbnail if it doesn't stick in the nail or at least scratch the nail it is not sharp enough. Yes and just because a hook is new don't mean it is sharp.

[Tracker81]

I had similar problems last year. Bass fishing and couldn't set hook for the life of me. After 4 time of missing a fish, on the next bite I let him run with it and I set that suckered hard. It jerked out of his mouth and I fell out the boat in the nastiest stinking moss u have ever smelt. I Climbed back in boat and realized my buddy had cut the hook off as a prank. We competed against each other all the time and on that jig I could smoke him on bass. Not no more. Lol

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[skiptomylu]

I copied the thread to here for you. Hope that is what you wanted?

Skip

[skeetbum]

I'll bet you check em from now on. Just need to tie a few more.