Reprinted from Sport Fishing Magazine, August 1998 Welcome to Face Off, where hot topics of interest and importance to anglers are debated by two key players, each arguing his or her side of the issue. Each player then rebuts the points made by his or her opponent. Both advocates are allowed the same amount of space, and procedures are in place to ensure complete fairness.                           Doug Kelly, editor Getting a game fish to strike your bait or lure is the first challenge an angler faces. The second involves ensuring a solid hookup. Throughout the history of the sport and to this day, most anglers have believed that the best way to accompolish a hookup involves exerting extra pressure with the rod so the hook firmly penetrates the fish's jaw. "Setting the hook" has thus become part of the lore of fishing, a common inclusion in every tale of a fish fight. However, a growing legion of experts now believes that setting the hook is unnecessary, even detrimental. They argue that modern hooks come out of the box so sharp that all an angler need do is keep a taut line after the strike and the hook will do the penetrating by itself. But not everyone's convinced. Here, then, is the debate in response to the following statement: It's no longer necessary to set the hook on a fish to get a solid hookup.

Dennis Braid, owner of Braid Products based in Palmdale, California, has honed his fishing skills over the past 15 years via dozens of long-range trips. Considering some of the things you read and hear about in fishing, it's no wonder people often don't catch anything. And if you think fishing without setting the hook sounds like one of those plausible insider tricks, it's not -- it's bogus. Let's look at the fundamentals of angling: baiting, hooking, fighting and landing. If you have a breakdown anywhere along the way, all you've got is a fish story. The number of real action situations where the anglers does not actively initiate the hook-set is minimal, and usually based on technique or some select terminal gear. When someone suggests not setting the hook, just think about that for a minute. Angling is proactive. Isaac Walton may have thought he was fishing in his Compleat Angler, but he was really only waiting. And when you talk about fishing without hook setting, you're really just hoping. Look at the physics of the game. A hook is designed to penetrate, and by virtue of most designs (having a barb located within the curvature of the wire), it's built with the idea that it must be driven so the barb can help hold the fish. But between the clean hook-set and the fisherman on the other end are distance, some length of stretchable filament and a flexible fishing rod. To get the hook to do its job, it takes measurable force. There are lots of studies on the process, but in every case, the tools we use -- rod and line expecially -- do not deliver the full force of the line test. And they can't. Rods and lines are designed for fighting and landing of fish as well, and those other angling fundamentals require different attributes rather than sheer full-test force. Even reel makers understand the crucial nature of hook setting and design levers that can be adjusted for maximum hook-setting force before the angler drops back into fish-fighting drag levels. Smart anglers make similar adjustments when equipped with star drags. But consider this: Even though an angler is proactive and sets the hook, he may still not make the hook penetrate past the barb. That may ultimately happen during the fighting of the fish, using proper technique an drag setting. But without starting the process first (the hook-set delivers its penetrating force with speed, just like a knockout punch), the anglers risks a bad connection. And what about the fish itself? Some are built with armor-plated jaws that defy modern hook-setting technology -- tarpon, billfish and wahoo are but a few that come to mind. More than their own physiology, how can you anticipate their bait-taking behavior -- the behavior some think will allow the fish's own momentum to set the hook? Many game fish take live baits, chunks and even lures and move suddenly in mad but arbitrary directions. The prospect of waiting on such a fish as it perhaps crosses lines, dives for structure of crosses over the prop cage or boat hull is the equivalent of bad angling. Be smart: Set the hook! Bouncer Smith's Rebuttal Put your sharpest hook on light line and walk it through 100 feet of water. Place the point against a board and hold it while someone at the other end jerks as hard as he can with his rod. He's not going to have much luck -- and imagine trying it with solid bone. Next, let go of the board or "swim" it toward your angler while he jerks. Again, the hook won't set. Simulate a fighting fish by moving the board around while he pumps and winds using a normal drag setting and try to get the hook to fall out of the board without turning the board over (fish can't turn their mouths over). And some line belly or figure in a solt mouth tissue, and you'll probably succeed in pulling the hook. What does this demonstrate? Steady, maximum pressure without hook-sets tops the "jerks" almost every time.

Capt. Bouncer Smith is a Miami-based charter-boat guide and considered one of the country's top experts in nearshore and offshore fishing. In days of old, many captains (myself included) preached, "It takes two jerks to catch a fish: one on each end of the rod". That's no longer true, because today we use hooks that come out of the box sharper than we could ever sharpen them with a file. Actually, many of us quit jerking hooks even before super-sharp hooks came along and still average more hookups than those setting the hook. I guess that's why a new slogan's emerged for many skippers: No "jerks" allowed aboard this boat. My customers fish live bait, dead bait or even lures from a drifting or anchored boat. Often a fish strikes an offering and -- not having a label telling it which way to go -- runs straight toward to boat. The water pressure may still cause the rod to bend, and if you then jerk the rod to try to set the hook, the result is added force against the belly in the line -- which doesn't affect the hook at all. Instead, wind fast, and when the drag slips, pump and wind until you come completely tight on the fish and line starts running off the reel. Now you've got full pressure against the hook, and it won't fall out with good pressure pulling on it -- letting that super-sharp hook set all by itself. When a hook's in a bony-mouthed species, it will slide across bone and often slip into a crack and bury. However, if you jerk the hook while it's stuck in solid bone, it will usually poop right out of the fish's mouth. The first angler I met who has never tried to set the hook is named Rod. He always holds the rod at the optimum 45- to 60-degree angle and never jerks the rod to set the hook. As a matter of fact, Jerry Webb (president of Pflueger Taxidermy) and I once tried to develop the best way to hook tarpon on live shrimp. We experimented with instantly setting the hook when a tarpon strikes and with dropping back the bait after the strike and then setting the hook. But Rod would have none of that an out-fished us just about all the time. Rod also does a great job on marlin with high-speed lure, holding the rod high and usually letting the big fish run about half the line off the reel before the hook finally drives itself home. When a marlin or other large game fish strikes, Rod never jerks the lure or bait out of its mouth, which often happens to other anglers who keep jerking on the rod even though the fish's mouth is open. Rod never broke a rod hitting the T-top, snapped light line after a jerky attempt to set the hook or (as my dad once did to me) accidentally cut his son's lip by reaching over the lad's shoulder in a desperate attempt to set the hook for him. Yep, ol' Mr. Rod Holder sure has a great hooking average. Dennis Braid's Rebuttal If hook setting is fundamental to fishing -- and it is -- then proper hook setting should be part of the definition. The difference between merely swinging the rod and using a quick thrust of the rod on a tight line should be obvious. The so-called "reel set" requires first that the rod be pointed at the fish, and then by rapid cranking, the slack and its accompanying drag in the water are overcome and a straight line to the fish is accomplished. At that point, instead of relying on existing opposite forces, the angler "sets," delivering that punch to drive the hook home. The only exception to the rule is with circle hooks. These are not designed to penetrate in the hammer-and-nail sense, but rather as the line is pulled right by the fish, the hook slides and turns so that it merely "catches" the corner of the mouth. A quick hook-setting motion wuld only foil the closed-gap design of a circle hook, so it's the one place the non-set works.