Bumping fish, or just not hooking them properly........

[tigger]

Tigger, Do you not think that kamasan animals and Drennan super spades are heavy and thick gauge wire hooks ?

Give Tubertini 808's or the Guru QM1's a try, Both with do a variety of baits and are sharp,light and strong,

I think they're middle of the road in thinckness Mark. That's why I use them. As you can imagine i've used many different hooks in the search for better but a number of them just weren't up to the job in hand, and opened up when playing a barbel in a swim where pressure had to be used. I've never had a animal or super spade open up on me when playing a fish. Very often when trotting for barbel I fish straight through with 6lb line and another good thing about those hooks is that if they get stuck into a log etc and I have to pull for a break the usually open up before the line goes, which is great! Due to their gape I can fit on ten or more maggots no problem and I like to have my hook bursting with food lol.

I will have a look at the hook you reccomend though and no doubt i'll get a pack or two and give them a go .

Regarding what I meant about bumping fish...yes I do meant just feeling the hook sort of make contact for a millisecond and then, so not actually having the fish on and then it coming off after several or more seconds.
If the latter happens then chances are it was just nicked under the skin, fould hooked or summot.

 

[wetthrough]

Just curious but does nobody else back the drag off to take the brunt of the strike? I do if I'm fishing close to and more than likely to get hooked into silvers. I can always change it back if something bigger gets a hold.

 

[john step]

As Sam has opinioned I feel the term bumping off is that first instance when you strike/pull into a fish and feel it for a split second and its gone.
I can MISS as many bites as most people particularly when hemping but then I don't feel a fish so thats not a bump.

When I have bumped fish I usually find a maggot has turned across the hook point. Often with roach which seem to have the knack of doing that. The other reason Is that this clumsy so and so has not inspected the hook point close enough after hooking a piece of bankside vegetation.
Modern fine wire super sharp hooks seem to get dulled and bent the easiest.
In a similar vein to a recent thread about line breaking prematurely I wonder if most of the time these things are percentage wise our own faults

 

[nottskev]

Personally, I've never been happy with this word 'strike' as a means of actually hooking fish and in my type of fishing where (at this time) 'striking' (if that is what I did) has long been replaced with 'pulling' into fish. Without doubt my catches have improved particularly when fishing hemp/tares etc etc.
'Striking') suggest a sharp reaction to the float disappearing and I no longer do this, prefering to (almost) move the rod sideways in a more gentle 'sweep' - a 'pull' if you will.... Striking. to me anyway, suggest one is expecting to make contact with fish every time and i don't think it does.

Apologies, I need to close down now, but I think I have put my point across???

ps How many times recently has 'striking' vertically with hemp or even red mags resulted in missed fish, but a long thin float with rod top buried 2' from it, and a sideways 'pull' changed that to a good roach time after time. NOT always but I believe it's worth thinking about . Trotting: never done anything other than use a pull to hook fish and not done too bad..............

Perhaps we need to analyse the word 'strike' ??

I agree with most of that - "striking" is about finding the most efficient way to move the hook enough to set it, and that can often be a smooth pull. It depends on a number of things: whether the line is floating or sunk, straight or bowed, the fish in deep or shallow water, close in or far out etc. There are times, though, when only a sharp movement seems to do the trick - those crucian-type trembles on dotted floats, which various fish can give, often seem to need a fast, sharp reaction.

As for "strike" - it is indeed a bit melodramatic, as if the angler is a coiled spring or a pouncing predator. Fishing has a number of well-used expressions that could be said to misrepresent things in order to excite our imaginations. Do fish "fight"? Well, they certainly struggle, as any creature would, to escape, presumably out of instinct to avoid death, what's happening to them, but they're hardly saying "Ok big boy let's see what you've got". The "fight" stuff might be to put up the idea that the fish are volunteers in something with a touch of the Queensbury rules or the Scottish "square go" about it. Do barbel "give a ferocious bite"? Or is this a more exciting way to conceive what happens when they hook themselves and bolt and to help maintain the aura of swashbuckling power we like to create around them? I hear it a lot less these days, but anglers used to tell me they'd "hammered 'em" and "battered" 'em. What, I used to wonder, is going on in your head.

We're not alone in preferring metaphors that flatter us and make what we do sound more heroic. Think of "surfing" the net - lying on the sofa with a smartphone- or "playing" the lottery - handing over a few quid at a kiosk - to name just a couple of popular "sports".

 

[mikench]

How do you " take apart" a water? Never understood that one unless it was Moses doing the fishing and performing his party piece!

 

[thecrow]

Or "win" something on e bay, I have heard anglers say they have been " smashed up" all a bit dramatic really.

 

[Tee-Cee]

I suppose 'dotted down' is another one that can be misleading. Not to say I don't us it in some cases, but not when seed fishing as was once the case. These days, if conditions are right I have used floats with long very thin antennas (with up to 50mm above the surface) to turn more bites into fish and this is certainly the case with large and small hemp.
With the float dotted I struck every time the float disappeared and whilst it caught me fish I couldn't say the success rate was particularly high and as a result of pure luck I found that having more float above the surface the 'bites' at which to strike could be 'chosen' and this 'almost' made hemp fishing more relaxed.

Cast out, wait for the float to settle and almost immediately (when feeding consistently) the float would dip (say) 25mm and almost instantaneously return to its original position. This might reoccur a couple of times but it was never submerged enough to say it was a positive bite, until out of the blue the float would just continue to submerge and a fish was on. Had the dotted down method been used I suggest many bites 'could' be missed as in all likely hood the float would be on its way back up before the up before a strike connected!
NOT, repeat NOT to say a dotted down float cannot work but with this type of 'bites above the surface' fishing that I use, I'm sure in my own mind, that I catch more fish because of it.

All of this (none of which is new) came about when a bigger shot went missing on a cast and the float ended up sitting much higher in the water, but then, over some minutes it danced up and down without submerging before eventually going under and I struck into a fish. After that I didn't replace the shot and caught more fish as a result. (Changing to a thin, long antenna float came later and with some experimentation proved to be a lot better in presentation - a Drennan jobie used until i made my own).

It would be totally wrong to say this might apply to other forms of fishing BUT it has proved pretty good when bread fishing for Crucians and bites seem to come and go without anything positive happening.....

I'm not saying this is the answer to anything but it works for me, producing many good roach - plus it offers me the chance to put forward the 'new' term 'above the water bites' !!!


ps In addition to the long antenna float I also mess with bottom shot position from the hook, sometimes having this 250 mm from the hook. Also, I'm talking still water fishing here (at all depths) as you may have gathered...........

 

[Keith M]

Whenever I start to bump fish off its usually when I’m fishing the waggler and I either change my hook immediately (especially if I’m using caster or I’ve been getting a lot of bites) or I start to move my bottom shot either closer to the hook or further away and this usually solves the problem.

The rod I’m using doesn’t usually cross my mind unless the above hasn’t solved my bumping off of fish.

Keith

 

[thecrow]

Is this dropping fish just after feeling them something that only happens with bait on a hook as opposed to on a hair? I can't recall dropping a fish just after hooking while using a hair although of course I have lost fish while playing them. It would indicate to me that as has been said the hookhold is very slight or the hook is blunt.

 

[sam vimes]

Blunted hooks and baits masking hookpoints are always the first thing I look for when bumping becomes a little too regular. However, when you have identical set ups, with just a different rod, to hand, and bumps are all but eliminated, you end up fairly certain that the rod is having an influence on proceedings. With rods I've doubted, I have taken second set ups just to remove the element of doubt. Having far too many rods allows me the luxury of doing this, but it's not something I'd expect most normal, sensible, people to be able to do so easily. The fact that I've got a seemingly endless supply of small grayling, notoriously bony mouthed and susceptible to bumping, also helps.​

Is this dropping fish just after feeling them something that only happens with bait on a hook as opposed to on a hair? I can't recall dropping a fish just after hooking while using a hair although of course I have lost fish while playing them. It would indicate to me that as has been said the hookhold is very slight or the hook is blunt.

I suspect that bumping tends to happen far less with the bigger species. However, I don't believe that it never happens. I see plenty of carpers lift into fish only to see the rod bend and straighten very rapidly. No doubt that a proportion will be down to blunted or masked hooks and it's even more likely to happen with barbless hooks. However, to my mind, the prime culprit is likely to be fast actioned and overly powerful rods, especially with smaller fish.

Whilst there can be plenty of factors in bumping fish, I've long being convinced that rod action and power can play a significant part. Want to suffer less from bumping? Get a lighter actioned or more through actioned rod. The snag being that you may not be able to do certain things as well as you'd like. With carp rods it'll be at the expense of casting longer distance with bigger bags/legers. With a float rod, it's likely to compromise on casting weight and the loss of the ability to strike with little more than a roll of the wrist when trotting.

 

[theartist]

I had an interesting insight into both bumping fish and striking a few years back watching dad on a stretch of the Colne that was full of Barbel and Chub back in the day, after the first few weeks of the season the river used to drop gin clear making the famous 'aquarium' swims and you couldn't get away with two anglers in the same spot. With that in mind we'd take it in turns catching fish, even dad used to trott back then and it was cool to watch the float go down the swim, even if I was itching to get back in there myself.

The thing is watching the fish, his bait and his float from my vantage point downstream was an eye opener. Many a time i'd say strike when a fish clearly took the bait and he'd retort sharply with "At What ?" adamant that the float hadn't gone under, swapping places I too would suffer this and it was clear the fish, both barbel and chub were taking the bait and not even moving the float. Trying to counter this we agreed that if one said "Strike" the other would regardless of what happened with the float. Did it work? Basically no, we just ended up bumping fish off a lot and probably raising our voices a bit too much, looking back it was funny but there were lessons to be learnt.

Bottom line was the fish were ejecting the bait before there was time to strike, the bump off was either from the 'spit out' or a slight foul hook as the fish turned away, what was revealing was how slow we both were when the fish were really shy

We reverted to normal fishing next time with me just watching him and unsurprisingly the fish fed better without us hollering at each other, watching dad's float and the fish it was evident that when the fish were up for it they were more or less hooking themselves against what was a quite a crude float, often a barbel would be one metre sometimes even two away from where it took the bait by the time dad struck, he basically could have just held the rod still. The chub were more canny especially if the water was clear but they too would slip up eventually, and be well away with the bait before he struck. It was also amazing how much action was going on down there despite only tiny bites showing at times. It's worth adding that the fish that were taking freebies didn't bolt at all, only the ones that either felt the hook or some resistance

Nowadays this sight is commonplace for me on a gin clear River Lea and a few other rivers and it's not just on the lead where you get the three foot twitch, a loss of attention can often see the float heading off at a rate of knots before the Barbel finally spits it out, and sometimes you'll get lucky with a self hooker. The older wiser Chub, can be real cagey when it's clear and you can even watch them grab a maggot and even a grain of hemp between the lips so delicately, like they were using tweezers. Turning their noses up at anything big or unnatural. It's a mistake to think tiny bites are small fish. Other times the chub can just be bonkers and hit anything that moves therefore it would be a mistake to be judging what a fish does on the good days, bump offs rarely happen when it's one after the other. This is replicated with the other species and often the only way to get a good ratio of fish per strike when things are hard is by freelining a visible bait, bump offs are extremely rare when doing this but obviously it helps to be able to see the bait. Watching the line move on the suface if you can't see a bait is a really clean way of fishing and bump offs don't happen doing this either.

I'm of the belief as a float angler that a lot of my fish are semi hooking themselves. Controversial thought maybe but visualise a bait on a float down the end of a swim, how far is a feeding fish going to take that before the float dips? when you consider the angle from rod tip to float to hook, even held back hard there's a lot of movement for that line to make before the float goes under. Bump offs therefore are unavoidable unless you have the fish hooking themselves against a heavy float, the quicker you strike maybe the more you'll suffer bumps, but you will still end up hooking some of those quick bites, or those really shy bites come winter, some of my biggest fish have been the tinest of bites on really cold days but how far they are actually taking the bait i'll never know.

 

[barbelboi]

I would assume that there is always a chance of a fish attempting to 'spit' the hair rigged bait out and the hook just catching lightly on/around the mouth during the hoped exit process.

 

[theartist]

I would assume that there is always a chance of a fish attempting to 'spit' the hair rigged bait out and the hook just catching lightly on/around the mouth during the hoped exit process.

Yeah I imagine those are some of the 'plucks' the barbel guys have when on the lead

 

[wetthrough]

From about 5m on fish taking the bait. Looks to me like striking on the lift should be most successful as they pretty much always lift the bait before moving off which is when the float goes down.

YouTube

 

[Philip]

My take on it is that there is a fine line between what is a bumped fish and what is a hook pull. Basically I just see both as a fish « coming off ».

I think bumped fish in the context of what’s being discussed on this thread, i.e that literally instantaneous feeling of a fish on and then off as you strike (or pull into it) can be down to many different things. My first port of call when I bump a fish or suffer a hook pull is my hook. I check the point to see (or feel) if there is a problem…its interesting how sometimes you can feel an issue with a hook that you cannot see with your eyes even if you have good eyesight.

If everything seems ok with the hook then I would probably put it down to just nicking the fish very lightly. I literally pulled the bait out of its mouth and may have just nicked the skin thus feeling the fish for an instant before it pulled off. I think this can happen more frequently with smaller hard mouthed fish for example Mullet. Alternatively my bait may have just masked my hook point.

If it happens 2 or 3 times in short succession I am going to change my hook regardless of if I see or feel an issue with it.
Another reason for bumped fish could be that I simply didnt strike hard enough to set the hook. Its interesting to hear Marks comments on the pole & elastic in deeper water as I think that basically demonstrate the problem of the hook not being set properly so the fish « bumps » off.

With regard to a rod, I think the same can be true, I doubt it makes a huge difference but a floppy or light rod and striking at distance with a stretchy line for example you may not be exerting enough force to set the hook.

However if the issue is more down to the fish not taking the bait properly then a hard strike wont make any difference as your basically pulling the bait out of its mouth so a hard strike wont solve anything.

All in all I dont think there is a one size fits all solution for bumped fish or hook pulls. You need to use your experience and try and determine at the time what the most likely cause is and then rectify it.

In all cases the the first thing I check when I bump a fish or suffer a hook pull is the hook point.

 

[O.C.F.Disorder]

TheArtist, you have just summed up my past month of fishing, This dry weather has created conditions that have been challenging, rewarding and insightful in ways that has my brain whirring. The only difference is all the fish have been "smelling" the bait, not even touching it.. No mater how i present it! I use a size 20 with a single maggot and conceal the hook within the maggot with only the hook point exposed on a 2 pound main line straight through to one pound hook link YET they will still charge at it and stop at the very last second and smell it. Insanity!! Free lining has been working best closely followed by fishing way over depth with 2 SSG 4 inches from the hook the striking at any sign of movement in the float. (normally lift bite) I play with trying to make some form of paternoster rig but turned out to be too time consuming so scrapped it. Awesome post mate.

 

[theartist]

TheArtist, you have just summed up my past month of fishing, This dry weather has created conditions that have been challenging, rewarding and insightful in ways that has my brain whirring. The only difference is all the fish have been "smelling" the bait, not even touching it.. No mater how i present it! I use a size 20 with a single maggot and conceal the hook within the maggot with only the hook point exposed on a 2 pound main line straight through to one pound hook link YET they will still charge at it and stop at the very last second and smell it. Insanity!! Free lining has been working best closely followed by fishing way over depth with 2 SSG 4 inches from the hook the striking at any sign of movement in the float. (normally lift bite) I play with trying to make some form of paternoster rig but turned out to be too time consuming so scrapped it. Awesome post mate.

Thanks mate, I had a similar trip to you last week to a new river up north where I was having tiny bites under a tree, I had a feeling they were chub as i saw one earlier upstream, just couldn't hit them but I had a picture in my head of what was going on under the water. Had to change to from stick a tiny waggler which is rare for me and finally after a few more missed bites I connected with a colossal chub of around two and a half pounds lol. Were I able to freeline i'm sure the end result would have been the same but much quicker. The shoal was then gone with the water so low but it felt good to know I was right and they were there.

May not have been the biggest chub but I think most fish are going to be hard earned this summer

 

[silvers]

There are some really interesting insights and observations in this thread, that I think highlight that there are many different root causes depending on the fish species, feeding confidence and tackle set up. A couple of additional ones from me ...
1. Whether it’s bumping or dropping off part way through the fight, i’ve Found a couple of rods that just didn’t work for me, not just once but over a sustained period. One was at the fiercer end .... a President II back in the 80s. The second was a shaky excelsior that I persevered with for a while but have now replaced totally with a more powerful rod (Cadence #2). Different actions and powers suit different anglers as well as different situations.

2. I think sometimes that fine wire hooks “spring” out when there is a light hook hold. In that they open enough to release the hook hold, but don’t bend out of shape, so you wouldn’t see evidence

3. I find that where the line comes off the hook is vital to both missed bites and hook hold. I tie spade ends so the line comes off the inside (bend side) of the hook shank. Sometimes the knot slips a bit and ends up behind the spade ( outside of the shank). I then miss loads of bites and lose and bump fish. If move it round again or retire the hook .... problem solved.

4. Shotting and position of last shot can make a huge difference to bite to hook up success ratio ... particularly when catching on-the-drop. When catching well I often am making small shotting changes every few fish. Equally I know successful anglers who don’t.

All food for thought

 

[tigger]

Tigger, Do you not think that kamasan animals and Drennan super spades are heavy and thick gauge wire hooks ?

Give Tubertini 808's or the Guru QM1's a try, Both with do a variety of baits and are sharp,light and strong,

I just had a nosey at the 808s and they looked a littke light for my style of fishing but I was going to get a pack anyhow until I noticed theyre all barbless, deffo not for me.
I don't like large barbs on a hook but prefer a micro barb.
I gpt a pack pf guru spade end feeder hooks that looked good.
I then noticed Bobco selling animals for 1.15 a pack delivered....had to get some of the .

 

[sam vimes]

Tigger,
if you fancy trying a slightly more subtle hook than Super Spades or Animals, give the Drennan Wide Gape Match a good coat of looking at. It's not exactly a fine wire match hook. It's become my go to hook for all my maggot and caster work. I wouldn't initially have use them when specifically targeting barbel, but my confidence in them has grown after landing plenty of high double figure carp and plenty of decent tench. I've even had the odd barbel on them. The only snag with them is that they only go to a size 14. I wish they did 12s and 10s.