Losing a lot of hooks and sinkers...help?

[sonicsink]

The small ponds and lakes I used to fish at had sandy bottoms, so I have never had this problem before, but they have been bought up and become private, and I don't really feel like being arrested for trespassing.

The bottoms I'm fishing now are rocky, weedy, and who knows what else is down there. I find I've been getting caught on rocks and stuff and ending up having to pull so hard, my line snaps. Just yesterday between my son and I, I think we lost about 6 hooks and sinkers.

Is this a normal thing for shore fishers? or is there a different way I can be rigging up our lines to avoid this?

Thanks!

[instapump416]

How about this type of rig?
You would only lose your sinker if it snags on a rock.

[sonicsink]

That's pretty much exactly what I'm doing, except I do leave about 1-2 inches of line out to the hook.

[MuskieBait]

It's normal in some places. There are some rivers I fish where if I don't lose a dozen of hooks and sinkers, I'm having a really great day.

You can try using different styles of sinkers. For rocky areas, sometimes slinky style sinkers or pencil lead can help. For weedy areas, there really is no getting around it except casting to the weed line, pockets or dips and turns. For woody areas, again it's hard to get around it except to cast to the side of it.

If you are fishing in an area and you notice there are snags in certain spots, or patches of areas where you tend to snag up more, just avoid casting into that area. There's really nothing else you can really do aside from using a float rig.

But sometimes, fish hold in those snaggy structures...and you just gotta gamble and sacrifice a few hooks and sinkers to find the fish...it's all part of the game.

[zippyFX]

Some things I have found improved the situation for me:

- Using stronger line in snaggy areas; Reduce but does not eliminate snags and snaps.
- I use a sliding sinker (either Egg or no-roll) with a larger swivel with a leader that has lower pound test than the main line. More often than not I loose (or straighten) the hook but I keep my sinkers
- you can also use a threeway swivel and used pinched slip shot on the bottom leader. If there is a snag on the weight the split shot will slide off but you will still keep your hook and swivel but you will need new shot. you will also save allot of time re-tying.
- you may also want to consider a slip bobber to allow for a deeper presentation but keeping off the bottom.

Also, I have found that letting the rig sit longer giving the fish a longer chance to hit and lift the weight off the bottom reduces the lost terminal tackle. Constatly casting and reeling with this outfit in snaggy areas will const you allot of terminal tackle.

[MuskieBait]

(09-17-2013 12:01 PM)zippyFX Wrote:  - you can also use a threeway swivel and used pinched slip shot on the bottom leader. If there is a snag on the weight the split shot will slide off but you will still keep your hook and swivel but you will need new shot. you will also save allot of time re-tying.

^ That's what I do when I bottom bounce in river that require lighter weight (too light for slinkies or pencil lead). It's a bit less helpful in still water situation though.

With all kinds of bottom rigs, using a couple of floating beads on the line could also keep your bait a few inches off bottom, thus reducing the times your hook may snag bottom. Most times, the fish does not care that the bait is a few inches off bottom, not even bottom feeding fish like catfish or redhorse.

[OldTimer]

As said by others.......... you will get lots of snags when fishing any rig on bottom.

Also as said above - the location of the sinker on the bottom of the stack up may help.

Here's a few more things:

Use the smallest hook size and hook "gap" for the situation.

Use the lightest weight sinker necessary for the situation and current.

If you do use a bell sinker on the end of the line, and it's always hanging up - tie it on with a granny knot that you know will fail well below the breaking strength of your line, yet will stand up to cast stresses........... a type of sacrifice rig. And while we're here - who said that "sinkers" need to be those expensive items specifically designed/sold for that purpose.......... I regularly use old scrap/surplus steel bolts, nuts, or other pieces of metal as "sinkers" - they're free and most will actually safely biodegrade (rust) away to nothing , unlike lead, cadmium, non-ferrous alloys, or tungsten and their negative effects on the environment and waterfowl digestive systems.

Some sinker shapes and profiles are more prone to jamming or hanging up than others (ie bell is worse than walking, egg is worse than folded ear).

Sometimes use of multiple pinch-on sinkers rather than one heavy sinker helps........... depends what your snagging........... this same thing - if on the end of the line might sometimes only lose you a few of the stack up of pinch-ons............

Avoid excessive amounts of slack in your line - complete uncontrolled freedom promotes the rig finding it's way into the wee nasty crevices.

Plus - make mental notes of what rigs work better in the locations you frequent................ perhaps you will discover a pattern and develop a preferred method for your haunts.

Cheers,

OldTimer

[MuskieBait]

I know in my other post, I said not to over think things (sometimes)...

But then there are occasions where you should think over things...it may make you go "...hm..."

I know there are a lot of members here who fish from shore using the dropshot rig. The argument is that this rig, because the hook is placed 12", or 24" or more, from the sinker, it should theoretically snag bottom less often, right?

Well, let me propose a common scenario...consider this situation...

You, the angler, makes a 60-foot cast from shore. Let's assume that you propped your rod up at an angler (ie, rod tip up) when you rest your rod, and let's assume that the rod tip is 5 feet from the water line. Also, let's assume that your sinker eventually hits bottom at a depth of 10 feet. Thus, the total VERTICAL distance, from the rod tip to the bottom is 15 feet.

So...let's draw a triangle. (Can you see where I'm going? Let's go back to highschool geometry/trigonometry ). The rise of the triangle (combined height of rod + water depth) is 15 feet. The run of the triangle (distance cast out from shore) is 60 feet. That makes the hypotenuse (the exact length of line cast out) roughly 60.8 feet. If the total height is 15 feet and your length of line out is 60.8 feet, you get a ratio of roughly 0.25 (which is actually your sine angle). Without going into complicated trigonometry, I'm going to skip all that and simply use ratios (it's all a ratio anyways), since triangles sharing the same sine angles can simply be scaled larger or smaller...meaning relative ratios in the length of the three sides.

Taking that ratio (or sine angle), I calculated that for a certain distance between your hook and your sinker (represented by the hypotenuse of smaller triangles), you can figure out how far off bottom your hook really sits (the opposite side of the smaller triangle). Here's the "chart", with inches rounded to the nearest whole number...

(distance in feet between sinker and hook) = (inches off bottom)

1 feet = 3in off bottom
2 feet = 6in off bottom
3 feet = 9in off bottom
4 feet = 12in off bottom
5 feet = 15in off bottom

So...the hook is not that far off bottom, huh?

The longer you cast, while fishing at the same depth, the more you put your hook closer to bottom (smaller angle). The shallower the depth you fish, given the same casting distance, will also put your hook closer to the bottom.

The dropshot rig is really only more snag-less if you are using a more vertical presentation, or fishing in really deep water. And it really only presents your bait higher off bottom if the angle is greater (again, more vertical presentation)

So it is not really the best rig to use to reduce snag...a boulder can easily be 12" tall...so are branches on bottom...or a stump...or those fine stringy weeds or any other kinds of weeds...

It's even worst if you have slack in the line.

With your typical 6' to 7' freshwater rods, it's not really that convenient (nor good casting mechanics) to fish a 5' leader anyways. That is usually best with 9' or longer rods. So in your typical fishing situation, the dropshot rig is not really all that snag-proof.

I really only use the dropshot style rig (high-low rig, chicken rig...whatever you like to call it) when I'm fishing deeper areas, or from tall piers or bridges, or if I can keep my line tight or hold the rod in hand and walk the rig along bottom. If the area is too snaggy, it really is not the best choice.

That's really all I want to explain in a long winded way...but I do want you to understand

[OldTimer]

wow............ so whaddaya think............is Pi round or square?...........smile.

[MuskieBait]

I like my pi's round...and apple is my favourite.

** Waiting for a 1-hr incubation...slow day at the lab