I primarily fish with jigs and if you soft shoe a hook set you won't land many,for a whole bunch of reasons,among them being line stretch,hook thickness,and tough jaws;also having to move a heavy jig a long ways in deep water,if that's where the bite is...
I also notice that bigger fish (5# plus)just have a bigger mouth and when they pop a jig it moves into the crushers,where they grip it....and if you don't set firmly the jig is not moved from the crushers and flipped up right to sink in...you are just leading them along and they will spit it on you.
So yeah, with jigs (the #1 bass bait in my book)you better make that rod "swish" or you will drop a lot of fish...
