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.