What Your Small Stream Hook-Up Rate?

[jeffroey]

I've been FF'ing for a long time and the past several years, I'm spending nearly all of my time on small streams. When I self assess, I think I'm pretty good at researching streams, finding productive water, identifying where the fish are likely to be holding, and making a cast that intices a strike. All good there.

My hook-up rate is in the crapper. Without actually counting, I'm guessing I'm batting .500 . . . at best. Great if it were playoff baseball but it's not. Missing half the fish that strike feels a little sub par.

Sharp hooks, small flies, quick reaction, gentle line set so you don't perform an aerial relocation, missed strike may be a refusal . . . yep.

All that considered (and for simplicity's sake, keeping it to dries; not underneath), what is your hook-up rate and what techniques do you use to obtain a high hook-up rate w natives/wilds on small streams?

 

[Swattie87]

My hookup rate I think has gotten worse with time. When I first started small stream fishing I wanted to catch as many fish as I could, so I’d often start with a size 14ish dry, and sometimes go down to a 16 if I was missing a lot of fish and/or there were a lot of small fish. Now, I don’t really want to hook any of the ones smaller than legal size or so. I fish 12’s now, sometimes even 10’s if I’m dropping a nymph off of it.

Overall, 50% hookup ratio seems about right. I think, sometimes what we think are missed hooksets are actually refusals. (Yes, even Brookies sometimes can tell something’s off and decide to bail.)

FWIW, my hookup ratio fishing hatches to wild Browns on the bigger streams is even lower.

Edit: One more thought, when I do think I’m missing an abnormally high number of fish, I remind myself to wait a half second before setting the hook. You want the fish’s mouth closed and its nose starting to face back down, and this takes a split second from when you first detect the rise. This usually helps a little. Happens pretty much the first time I switch back to fishing dries in the Spring.

 

[troutbert]

I agree that 50% is about right. I'm not sure why I miss so many fish.

One reason might be that I often use bushy flies like Stimulators, and all that hackle may partly close off the gape of the hook.

 

[jeffroey]

Yea. That's a great point I hadn't necessarily thought of even though it's pretty obvious the times you see the fly next to the fish. Sometimes I wonder how the fish was able to get it in its mouth in the first place.

 

[Bamboozle]

I've been FF'ing for a long time and the past several years, I'm spending nearly all of my time on small streams...

...My hook-up rate is in the crapper. Without actually counting, I'm guessing I'm batting .500 . . . at best.

A couple of questions:

1. Are you using different rods for these small streams as in something shorter or slower...?​

​

2. If so, have you had similar issues with the same rods on larger streams?​

If the answer to #1 is YES and the answer to #2 is NO, I am befuddled because my hook-up rate is no different regardless of where I fish or if it's wild fish versus stockers when using the same sized fly. HOWEVER, all of my trout rods have a similar action regardless of their length.

If the answer to #1 is YES and the answer to #2 is also YES, the difference may be the shorter or slower rod is effecting your reaction times.

If you haven't used the shorter/slower rods on bigger stocked water, you might want to just to see if the wild fish are faster than you are or you have the small stream/wild fish "yips."

If it is tackle related, I'd take those 'brookie stream" rods out to the local sunfish pond and get in some practice to accustom yourself to the reaction time required when fishing a shorter or slower rod.

Good luck!

 

[Swattie87]

How’s your line control? That’s another thought I had. It’s less of an issue for me on Brookie streams, where you generally don’t have a ton of line out, but it happens to me a lot, without me noticing it, on bigger water fishing dries…

You make a good long cast and get a good drift and take from a rising fish on the far bank, but you’re not paying attention to the slack line that’s built up over the course of your drift. You go and set the hook and pull all slack line, with little to no force being applied to the hook in the fish’s mouth. You either flat out whiff, or briefly hook the fish, but it creates more slack nearly immediately while you’re reaching to grab another arm full of line to pull in to get the fish tight, and it gets off.

Just another thought, and a common “user error” that I personally encounter.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

One reason might be that I often use bushy flies like Stimulators, and all that hackle may partly close off the gape of the hook.

I don't think so. The hackle would be pushed away from the hook as the fish clamps down on it.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

My hookup rate I think has gotten worse with time. When I first started small stream fishing I wanted to catch as many fish as I could, so I’d often start with a size 14ish dry, and sometimes go down to a 16 if I was missing a lot of fish and/or there were a lot of small fish. Now, I don’t really want to hook any of the ones smaller than legal size or so. I fish 12’s now, sometimes even 10’s if I’m dropping a nymph off of it.

Overall, 50% hookup ratio seems about right. I think, sometimes what we think are missed hooksets are actually refusals. (Yes, even Brookies sometimes can tell something’s off and decide to bail.)

FWIW, my hookup ratio fishing hatches to wild Browns on the bigger streams is even lower.

Edit: One more thought, when I do think I’m missing an abnormally high number of fish, I remind myself to wait a half second before setting the hook. You want the fish’s mouth closed and its nose starting to face back down, and this takes a split second from when you first detect the rise. This usually helps a little. Happens pretty much the first time I switch back to fishing dries in the Spring.

I'm guessing you have not but I figured I'd point out from my experience that I don't use size 10's anymore.

I've noticed that brook trout can and will get eye damage from the hook going through the roof of the mouth into the eye. I don't see this on browns. It could be eye positioning on the fish, as they are slightly different and that brook trout have larger mouths and a smaller fish can take a bigger fly.

To the OP your hook up rate is about average IMO

 

[Swattie87]

I'm guessing you have not but I figured I'd point out from my experience that I don't use size 10's anymore.

I've noticed that brook trout can and will get eye damage from the hook going through the roof of the mouth into the eye. I don't see this on browns. It could be eye positioning on the fish, as they are slightly different and that brook trout have larger mouths and a smaller fish can take a bigger fly.

To the OP your hook up rate is about average IMO

Yeah, I can’t say I’ve noticed that with any increased frequency. I mean it happens on occasion, but I don’t notice it happening more to Brookies necessarily. It just doesn’t happen all that frequent enough for me to take notice. I get what you’re saying though, the larger gap in the larger hook would allow for that to happen theoretically, on certain sized fish.

It’s a trade off. The bigger fish (by Brookie standards I mean legal size or bigger) can handle a hook into their jaw and its subsequent removal without any permanent injury to the jaw better than smaller fish. The larger fly avoids most of the smaller fish even being hooked, so you’re probably saving some fish injury there. Not sure there’s a right answer. (Other than not fishing for them.)

 

[Silent Ocelot]

A couple of questions:

1. Are you using different rods for these small streams as in something shorter or slower...?​

​

2. If so, have you had similar issues with the same rods on larger streams?​

If the answer to #1 is YES and the answer to #2 is NO, I am befuddled because my hook-up rate is no different regardless of where I fish or if it's wild fish versus stockers when using the same sized fly. HOWEVER, all of my trout rods have a similar action regardless of their length.

If the answer to #1 is YES and the answer to #2 is also YES, the difference may be the shorter or slower rod is effecting your reaction times.

If you haven't used the shorter/slower rods on bigger stocked water, you might want to just to see if the wild fish are faster than you are or you have the small stream/wild fish "yips."

If it is tackle related, I'd take those 'brookie stream" rods out to the local sunfish pond and get in some practice to accustom yourself to the reaction time required when fishing a shorter or slower rod.

Good luck!

^This. Having a number of rods makes it a tad confusing for me as when I fish a rod I haven't fished in while it takes some getting used to. I've gone back in forth with a glass rod this year and I always have had to exaggerate my hooksets, increasing the angle of the rod tip to the fish to the point of even having the rod tip behind me as I am fighting the fish. On one particular outing I used nylon tippet, which has more stretch than fluorocarbon. I was fishing my glass rod and I think I could only keep one fish pinned after I lost a few and made some corrections to my hook-setting as well as playing the fish. Truly amazing how much a rod and even tippet/leader choices can have on hook-setting and playing a fish.

On the inverse of that I started fishing a 6wt 9'6" fly rod that was overkill for the trout and panfishing I was doing. Had to dial things back on that rod as I was bumping mad fish and made some fish part of the involuntary space program of Elon Fukt.

 

[Bamboozle]

I'm guessing you have not but I figured I'd point out from my experience that I don't use size 10's anymore.

I've noticed that brook trout can and will get eye damage from the hook going through the roof of the mouth into the eye. I don't see this on browns. It could be eye positioning on the fish, as they are slightly different and that brook trout have larger mouths and a smaller fish can take a bigger fly.

To the OP your hook up rate is about average IMO

I read a theory a number of years ago that deep penetration into areas you would not want a fish hook to penetrate was exacerbated by hooks manufactured as barbless as opposed to smashed down barbs or regular barbed hooks.

As I never used the former I can't say if there is any merit to this opinion.

 

[Bamboozle]

...Having a number of rods makes it a tad confusing for me as when I fish a rod I haven't fished in while it takes some getting used to...

The slowest rods I own happens to be a tie between a particular bamboo, two graphite rods and a couple of glass sticks.

When I take them for an outing after a long time not using them it sometimes takes me a few casts and hook sets to get comfortable.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

How’s your line control? That’s another thought I had. It’s less of an issue for me on Brookie streams, where you generally don’t have a ton of line out, but it happens to me a lot, without me noticing it, on bigger water fishing dries…

You make a good long cast and get a good drift and take from a rising fish on the far bank, but you’re not paying attention to the slack line that’s built up over the course of your drift. You go and set the hook and pull all slack line, with little to no force being applied to the hook in the fish’s mouth. You either flat out whiff, or briefly hook the fish, but it creates more slack nearly immediately while you’re reaching to grab another arm full of line to pull in to get the fish tight, and it gets off.

That kind of situation is just tough in general due to the immense amount of slack present and current. Fly line also has a substantial amount of stretch and the farther you cast the more give it has. I'd say it's a 50/50 toss-up as to whether you will or will not get an effective hookset and keep the fish pinned in that kind of scenario.

I fish ponds where I frequently make 60+ foot casts to panfish and bass. Sticking a fish at that range even in stillwater, which is a lot easier to fish than moving water because the moving water variable is taken out, is still difficult and requires good reaction time, a good hookset, and line management abilities. I miss A LOT of panfish. I honestly just look for a rise near my fly and set accordingly. My goal is to stick a bluegill at 100 ft, a task that is hard considering I can't quite cast that far but have made casts into the 80 and possibly 90ft range. I will judge this distance by having all of the fly line out of my rod tip.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

If you REALLY want to increase your successful hooksets be sure to use BARBED hooks, this is paramount to keeping a fish pinned, well applied pressure is irrelevant. I prefer saltwater grade hooks on all my flies and really looking forward to ripping half of the fish's face off with my custom Abel pliers when I get them in. Just doing my part...

 

[sixfootfenwick]

I read a theory a number of years ago that deep penetration into areas you would not want a fish hook to penetrate was exacerbated by hooks manufactured as barbless as opposed to smashed down barbs or regular barbed hooks.

As I never used the former I can't say if there is any merit to this opinion.

That's interesting and was not aware there could be a difference.
For reference I don't use manufactured barbless hooks. I do smash down the barb on my flies but they all had one at one time.

When I noticed it was only once. I had tied up a number of size 10 Caddis dries and on a brookie stream I caught 7 fish in the first 1 hour. All 5 brookies had eye damage and the two browns nothing. I quit for the day, as I only brought an altoid container of the size 10 dries, when I got home I tossed them in the trash and went back to size 12. I've never had it happen again.
🤷

Could be a fluke, as I'm only going by that one outing but it was noticable. I'm sure those 5 fish died or at least had permanent damage.

 

[6xAdams(Jones)]

With dry flies only, and limited to sizes 20-16, I expect I'm about 50% successful like others on the board. Misses are always my fault: too much slack line... daydreaming/nature-watching... bad/wind knots on the tippet... fly too low in the water... fly an unseeable color... hook bend straightened or broken off... insisting on fishing even when it's too dark... using gifted flies with no barb and not keeping tight after hookset...
I could continue the list, but you get the idea. All things considered, .500 is way better than most MLB batting averages, so I don't beat myself up too much.
I forgot... I tend to be too "gentle" when a regular hookset will launch my rig, or a little fish, into the overhead vegetation.

 

[wildtrout2]

Hate to break the uniformity on hook-ups, but on small streams, which is what I fish almost exclusively, I'd say my hook-up rate is around 75%. I attribute this to the short 7' leader I always use.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

Hate to break the uniformity on hook-ups, but on small streams, which is what I fish almost exclusively, I'd say my hook-up rate is around 75%. I attribute this to the short 7' leader I always use.

Nice and that is possible. I should be sizing down my leader in some instances. I tend to use a catch all rig for streams, as I often frequent more than one in a day.
Your comment is a good reminder to go more watershed specific

 

[Silent Ocelot]

Edit: One more thought, when I do think I’m missing an abnormally high number of fish, I remind myself to wait a half second before setting the hook. You want the fish’s mouth closed and its nose starting to face back down, and this takes a split second from when you first detect the rise. This usually helps a little. Happens pretty much the first time I switch back to fishing dries in the Spring.

Good advice too. I nymph fish a lot, and when a fish takes your fly in that style of fishing the hook-up is instantaneous. For dry fly fishing it is always paramount to wait just a hair before setting, giving time for the fish to completely consume the fly before setting. Great advice Swattie.

 

[Silent Ocelot]

I attribute this to the short 7' leader I always use.

Does that 7' include tippet or is it 7ft. of leader before adding additional tippet? I have found that short is fine on tiny creeks, quite ideal to better control the fly and an easier amount of leader length to whip around brush. Those natives aren't leader shy so heavier leader/tippet material 3 or 4X is fine. I only ran 7X as a connector from my dry to dropper on one of my trickle treks to antagonize a buddy who fishes heavier tippet for natives. Only lost one fly that day to the rocks, no way in any of the pencil thin brookies I was catching were going to break that off.