The term "bumping fish"

[tigger]

While I was fishing today I noticed after catching a few fish that my hook wasn't penetrating the maggots easily at all. I then lost four fish in a row to hook pulls, one being under my feet after bringing it 40 yards back upstream. I knew why the hook was pulling out but was just too lazy to replace it with a new one. After loosing four fish like that I did put on a new hook and didn't loose another fish.
As has been said already in this thread, blunt hooks are one common cause of hook pulls/bumping fish.

 

[trotter2]

Bumping fish off was a match anglers term for loosing fish on the strike. To be honest it's less of a problem than it used to be, poorly designed splice tip rods were a typical example of this. Fine wire hooks powerful rods and over zealous striking often resulted in the gap of the hook springing hence the result. As Ian has said blunt hooks definitely won't help your catch rate either. Some days you will bump more fish than others due to the feeding behaviour of the fish not taking the bait confidently and the hook hold being poor. Some fish are more prone to bumping than others typical fish that we bump are grayling and dace. Small fish that when hooked lock sideways to the current when the hook goes in.Small fish that are like hitting a brick wall opening the hook momentarily. The softer the tip should help. Same reason we use light pole elastic nothing different.