Home Forums Fishing Freshwater How tough are large mouth bass?

I used to fish for them as a kid back east and don't remember them being hard mouthed. While I'm here online, I have the Outdoor channel in the background, and it must be bass night. Those guys with all the advertising on their wares hit those fish hard enough to jerk the beak off a turtle. Have the bass evolved like our big game, so one needs premimun hooks and high velocity strikes to score?

Yes, big bass do have a hard mouth. I fished with David Vance, a guide on Lake Fork Texas, a couple of times. He would set the hook so hard, that you could hear his rod swish through the air. I always wanted to do that, but never could quite acomplished it.

The viscious hooksets come into play when using wide gap single hooks and especially when using jigs that ride with the point up. It takes a good sharp stroke on the rod to sink a big or thick hook into the upper mouth/jawbone of a bass. The other issue is with small fish or one that is swimming towards you. A less agressive hookset will pull or glide the fish through the water and you may not bury the barb. Sometimes there's not a lot of resisitance to swing against on the fish's end of the line. With super sticky fine wire hooks, dropshot hooks, treble hooks, in lips and other soft tissue, - it doesn't matter as much.

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There is a relatively simple explanation to your observation of bass fishing techniques.

They are used to tournament fishing where time is money so they trying to hook, stun (so they will survive in the live well) and land them on one quick HARD jerk.

I have often wondered what fishermen from other styles of fishing think of those hook setting moves.

I'm a firm believer in not just jerking the rod in most fishing situations. Generally speaking when a hookset is needed I prefer to load the rod up first and then set the hook. It avoids snatching the hook out of a fish's mouth.

Bass fishing in the examples I cited are the exception for using a "clean and jerk".

In some situations it's far preferable to not set the hook at all. You risk tearing it out.

A benefit I've found with several species and a lighter set is that the bait or lure is still near the fish if one misses, and they will come back on it. I'm mostly a fly fisherman, and with bonefish, steelhead, salmon, and trout if one jerks like the bass boys the hook ends up about 20 yards behind me. With soft sets, the fly is still near the fish, and they will stay on the chase. I've had steelhead give me 3 hits in a single cast, and bonefish (who are fairly had mouthed) pick the fly up 3 or 4 times.

Another thing is that I don't break fish (especially big fish) off.

Circle hooks do not need a hookset. Engage the reel and the hook slides to the corner of the fish's mouth. Very popular in AK and saltwater fishing everywhere.

Most largemouth bass fishing takes a hard hookset. On crankbaits and rattle traps, Mustad Triple Grips treble hooks are your friend. Good luck.

I hardly fish bass with anything but soft plastics anymore. Love feeling that bass walking away with a bait in its mouth and readying the rod for the hook set. Now, I'm going to differ from most. I use 6 to 8# test on a medium action spinner rod and hardly ever make a really hard hook set. Yes, I lose a few, but it's just my style.

Dan

Simply depends on the technique, and the cover you're fishing.

If I'm punching grass, a technique we use quite alot here in the hydrilla mats, I'm using a 1oz and up weight, a 4/0 wide gap hook strong enough to anchor a small boat, 65lb braid, and a 7.5' flipping stik that looks like a broom handle. When a fish hits, I'm putting all 250+ lbs of southern beer belly into that hookset!!! I want to turn the fish, and head it to the boat. Same thing with fishing plastic worms around the cypress trees, or frog fishing over the pads and grass. It's 4 wheel drive, in yo face power fishing!!

On the other hand, if I'm throwing a topwater bait, jerkbait, etc, then I use no hookset at all. I simply lower the rodtip, make a quick sweep to the side, and let the trebles do the rest.

With monofilament line most of that "violent" hookset is required to stretch the line enough to get the hook to move. Use powerpro or fireline and the hook can be set with a sharp wrist flick if the hook is sharp.

when largemouth are in the mood to feed they get vicious with their lunch and they are awsome fighters so in my opinion they are "tough Enuff".

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...

Bob I think it makes a lot of difference in the jig weight and size of hook. Many times a 1/4oz jig is the ticket early in the year or fishing a front when you want a slow fall but...the hooks that come on many smaller jigs are not very large. This leads to not alot of leverage on the hookset and some missed strikes especially when not vertically fishing. I prefer the 3/8oz jig over any other cause it gives a good balance between the 1/4oz and 1/2oz(rarely fish the 3/4oz)and you can get it with the larger hook which when moved very much at all on the hookset usually digs in to the fish's mouth somewhere. I wish someone made a jig w/ a tru-turn style hook for the reason you mentioned above.But alas no one does to my knowledge.

I also like to fish a jig on a high rod with a slack line to give me some buggy whip type action on the set. I rarely fish anything but the Eakin jig in 3/8oz by Jewell bait company and have found the green pumkin and green gourd along w/blk/blue and red natural.The jig can be dragged on rocky shorelines as well as flipped in brush,cover, and blow downs.

Still going to try and hook up w/the boy after the new year.Hope you're doing well. Still have the parts for the Mashburn...just waiting on the funds.Keep a high rod and a slack line. Ken

They are damn tough. If trout, Crappie and Perch had to stand the strain of Bass Tournaments, they would be close to "gone" by now.

Bass are resilient creatures. I fish for them as much as anything else. I'm in the "swing for the fence" crowd when it comes to hook sets on bass.

Put them behind a computer keyboard and they become really, really tough.

I'm an old guy & started bass fishing in the late 50's. We started casting our own weedless jig heads for worm fishing because there was no such thing as worm fishing hooks, sinkers, etc. We were using mono, Fiberglas rods (Harnell), Ambassador 5000 reels, & used very hard hook sets. Even back then we keep our hooks very sharp. With the evolution of worm hooks, sliding sinkers, & graphite rods it became a bit less of a requirement to cross their eyes. Using older fiberglass rods & 3/0 hooks I have driven the hook through the top of many 6-8 pound bass. With the evolution of the Super Lines less stretch is involved so hooks do not need to be set quite as hard. Other than using light spinning tackle for slip shot fishing in mid-summer I'm still old school & still set the hook hard. You have to work out the best hook set based on your tackle & method of fishing with trial & error. Many anglers never sharpen their hooks or check the hook point or knots. This is something I do constantly. I have never lost many fish & have had many years where I caught 75-106 LM bass from 4-10 pounds. I did loose the largest bass I ever hooked (13+ pounds) & actually looked at on a Zorro spinnerbait. I was fishing spawning beds & casted around a lap in about 3' of water. This big sow charged the bait & I crossed her eyes. I was using "light" 25lb. test line & set the hook very hard. She ran around the lap & I tried to stop her from circling. She was hooked deep & when the hook pulled out a big chunk of meat was attached. I checked the area for days & never saw her floating. I also have done a bit of fishing & for over 35 years averaged 100 trips/year.

Harnell rods. Very cool. I have an early 60's Harnell, black rod blank, orange and yellow wraps and a two piece cork handle. It was my dad's favorite fishin' pole.

Sounds like the custom rods I had built. I still have one & my buddies cannot imagine how I fished one all day. Garcia Ambassador 5000's were $20 in those days. Unfortunately, I gave all of them away when the newer models came out. All were built with fore grips. A friend recently built me a graphite worm rod that is super light, but strong. Hope to use this spring.