I’m a beginner at fishing and I usually use worms as bait. But every time I reel in, I either catch a small fish that I release back into the water, or I find that the bait has been eaten without catching anything. I’d like to know — when is the right time to pull the line?
Posted by moradkmadou_3bi9a
3 Comments
idk
Ideally when theres a fish on the hook!😆 Jokes aside this is tough, especially in surf where the waves can trick you. the key in my opinion is razor sharp circle hooks, usually a little smaller than you think you need, and making sure not to ubstruct the gap of the hook with your bait. That way timing is less important, because fish will be more likely to self set the hook and stay on the line till you get it. I also keep my drag just tight enough that the waves and current cant pull it.
If your rods are like the ones in the first photo, it’s going to be tricky with small fish like that to know. Scale down a bit to a more sensitive tip and make sure you stay connected to the bait i.e no slack line.
Also what method are you using? Freelining, ledgering, float, etc? Each method has its own “tells” to indicate bites.
If freelining you really need to pay attention at all times and keep your line reasonably tight except when feeding more of course.. For ledgering, if there’s small ones about use a running leget with a little slack line, using a dropper or an up and down rig means smaller fish will not be able to run off with the bait so they’ll just sit there and gulp it down with little to no bite indication.
Having bait snatched by tiny ones that just eat it off the hook is unfortunately a part of the game but you can minimize it by using larger baits that can’t easily be licked off like squid, etc.
If float fishing use the smallest slimmest float you can and make sure it’s 75% submerged so you can know of sensitive bites.