Foul hooking fish

[Roland]

I've recently taken up pole fishing, something I really am enjoying so far and my catch rates as you will have guessed, have gone up .

 

One thing that bothers me though is that every trip I have have been on so far (4-5) I have foul hooked at least one fish

 

Bite has been quite normal. Float goes under, I lift gently using my knee, a fight ensues and I either hook the fish in the pectoral or anal fin. The last thing I wat to do is injure fish or even worse, kill one.

 

Is this just bad luck? or am I doing something wrong?

[davedave]

Hard to say without seeing you actually fishing. If you are building up a swim incorrectly it is possible there are 'too many' fish in a kind of frenzy and the fish end up getting foul hooked.

 

In the 7-8 years i have been fishing i have foul hooked maybe half a dozen fish, and i reckon 4 or 5 were on the whip. I think you do tend to foul hook a lot more fish on the pole or whip than you do on the float or ledger, don't know why though.

 

 

Sorry i can't really think what it would be, but hopefully someone will know

[Mark Wintle]

It may be because you are feeding too tight an area - just a thought. this can happen with pole pots. Try spreading the feed over a slightly wider area.

[tony tinca]

I've recently taken up pole fishing, something I really am enjoying so far and my catch rates as you will have guessed, have gone up .

 

One thing that bothers me though is that every trip I have have been on so far (4-5) I have foul hooked at least one fish

 

Bite has been quite normal. Float goes under, I lift gently using my knee, a fight ensues and I either hook the fish in the pectoral or anal fin. The last thing I wat to do is injure fish or even worse, kill one.

 

Is this just bad luck? or am I doing something wrong?

 

Its down to pole floats being much more sensitive and registering line bites by going under and looking like a real bite , this happens alot when you have them in a frenzy and you just need to cut back on the feed , you can usually tell by a lot of fizzing ( tiny bubbles) which is a good sign as it means you have a lot of fish competing but it can be a nightmare with lots of missed bites and foul hooked fish due to lifting into liners.

If this starts happening i normally start up another line about 10ft away and alternate between the two and feeding the line im not using .

You can amass a great weight this way after a bit of practice.

Out of interest are u foul hooking fish using paste ?

[larsagi2010]

Could it not be down to fishing too deep???

 

As the feed goes in the fish generally tend to come up in the water when the frenzy begins. Its possible that the fish are targeting the bait as it hits the water, then as it sinks down they also start going down following the freebies snagging your hook on one of their fins???

 

Not sure if its the cause, but from watching fish in my mums pond they do tend to slowly vertically drop when following sinking food which has been dropped on their noses... if a hook catches their fins it would look just like a standard bite to you or me....

 

Maybe try raising the hookbait slightly and see if that helps? Plus it will help reduce liners.

Edited April 2, 2011 by larsagi2010

[tony tinca]

Could it not be down to fishing too deep???

 

As the feed goes in the fish generally tend to come up in the water when the frenzy begins. Its possible that the fish are targeting the bait as it hits the water, then as it sinks down they also start going down following the freebies snagging your hook on one of their fins???

 

Not sure if its the cause, but from watching fish in my mums pond they do tend to slowly vertically drop when following sinking food which has been dropped on their noses... if a hook catches their fins it would look just like a standard bite to you or me....

 

Maybe try raising the hookbait slightly and see if that helps? Plus it will help reduce liners.

 

You can try and catch them shallow but i find the problem can get worse with more foul hooked fish , what i do apart from switching lines is to settle them by occasionally cupping in a hard squeezed ball of dampened micro pellets that sinks to the bottom before breaking up to get them feeding on the deck

[RUDD]

I would agree with all of the above but it may be that you are using to sensitive a float (try a size up) or try a float with a slightly thicker bristle - it could also be your shotting pattern - try moving your bulk and droppers around.

[tony tinca]

I would agree with all of the above but it may be that you are using to sensitive a float (try a size up) or try a float with a slightly thicker bristle - it could also be your shotting pattern - try moving your bulk and droppers around.

 

Yes i forgot about that , the last shot should be no less than 12 inches from the hook and then the rest of the shot spaced out every 1 1/2 inches towards the float . this gives a good natural fall the last 12 inches , like rudd says you can adjust this moving the last shot further away from the hook , the further away that last shot the less likelyhood of line bites and the real bites should be possitive enough anyway from the feeding frenzy .

On comparison if you where fishing for finicky feeders like crucian you would have the last shot as close as 2 inches or even less from the hook and the remainder spaced 12inches away from the last shot every 1& 1/2 inches , this is called a positive set up.

[Roland]

Thanks for the tips, no foul hooking today!