Why do American fisher-people strike so hard?

[Niall]

So I've been watching a bit of American bass fishing on youtube lately and I've never been able to figure out why they - 

1.  Strike soooooo hard on the fish

2. Fish seemingly full-locked drag at all times and water-ski every fish in as quick as possible

Do large-mouth bass have concrete mouths?  

I suspect the strike might be something to do with how they rig plastics on a weedless hook with the hook-tip buried in the plastic.  You'd need a fair old strike on that rig. 

Any Americans on here?  What's the deal guys?

[rickmarlin62]

Wankers hammin it up for the camera

[noelm]

Those Bass fight about as good as a Rock Cod, don't quite see the sense in just skull dragging a small rubbish fish in like that, the "yeehaa" like it's a feat, but, it is America......

[Captain Spanner]

I've heard that they have very hard mouths so that's why they fish with fast stiff rods, to set the hook. I would imagine that fishing in lakes with that much weed and timber you would need to have the thing come in a straight line to the boat as fast as possible because any sideways swimming will instantly collect heaps of weed on the line and find timber.

I think the American fashion of Bigger, Faster, Better is also be involved in the equation and makes it exciting. Our bream tournament guys go pretty hard and fast to keep the fish's head pointing towards the boat from the hookset too. This would not be a coincidence seeing the fashion in the bream tournament scene is mostly derived from the US Bass scene.

If the aim is to get the fish in the boat and not have fun taking your time and playing it then i think their method is the most efficient for it's purpose. 

We do a similar thing downrigging for kings in shallow water with gnarly structure. Heavy braid, heavy drag and drive the boat as fast as you can towards safe water.  We don't strike but, we just wind the handle with the rod held at 45degrees to set the hook if required.

[rickmarlin62]

Most of the gun bream tourney fishos use very light line n leaders    the yankee bass guys are using 20lb or 30lb braid  i dont see the comparison

[Berleyguts]

I imagine they pull them in hard and quick so they can get them in the live well and get the next cast out ASAP so they can try and upgrade their bag. I caught a large mouth bass in the US and I went easy on it - it gave me a good run for my money amongst the weed and timber.

Edited June 27, 2019 by Berleyguts

[Captain Spanner]

1 hour ago, rickmarlin62 said:

Most of the gun bream tourney fishos use very light line n leaders    the yankee bass guys are using 20lb or 30lb braid  i dont see the comparison

The bream guys might use light lines in many situations, but they still go as hard and fast as they can on the fish. The original post and comparison was always about their technique, never about their line.

You would have seen the old guys surf blackfish across the surface over the years, they just have a long rod and hold the fishes head above the water so it can't dive and swim. usually on light line too, you've probably done it yourself. Similar situation for squid if you can get them up on the top so they can't get a grip.

I agree most of the motivation for the US Bass guys carry on in their videos is theatre but it is not the only reason for their technique. They often need heavy lines to cope with the pressure from the weed and also abrasion on the timber.

[dirvin21]

I think one of the reasons for the extreme strike is a lot of yank bass fishos use straight through fluorocarbon rather than braid requiring a much harder impact to set the hook, just a theory,  I get some of the youtubers in particular see to dramatize a bit 

they do seem to fish very heavy weed beds and timber so when a fish is hooked it's go for broke or get buried, we use the same tactics with bream around oyster racks turning the head and giving nothing or get busted off, the main difference is bream will turn their nose up at heavy gear so we have to go lighter gear

[masterfisho7]

19 hours ago, Captain Spanner said:

I've heard that they have very hard mouths so that's why they fish with fast stiff rods, to set the hook. I would imagine that fishing in lakes with that much weed and timber you would need to have the thing come in a straight line to the boat as fast as possible because any sideways swimming will instantly collect heaps of weed on the line and find timber.

I think the American fashion of Bigger, Faster, Better is also be involved in the equation and makes it exciting. Our bream tournament guys go pretty hard and fast to keep the fish's head pointing towards the boat from the hookset too. This would not be a coincidence seeing the fashion in the bream tournament scene is mostly derived from the US Bass scene.

If the aim is to get the fish in the boat and not have fun taking your time and playing it then i think their method is the most efficient for it's purpose. 

We do a similar thing downrigging for kings in shallow water with gnarly structure. Heavy braid, heavy drag and drive the boat as fast as you can towards safe water.  We don't strike but, we just wind the handle with the rod held at 45degrees to set the hook if required.

I have looked at many Us Bass comps and have to agree with  this posting 

[Niall]

Thanks for the replies everyone.  I guess it's a style/culture thing as well as a practical thing.

Seems like it would take a little bit of the enjoyment out of it though.

 

Cheers

[Captain Spanner]

11 hours ago, dirvin21 said:

I think one of the reasons for the extreme strike is a lot of yank bass fishos use straight through fluorocarbon rather than braid requiring a much harder impact to set the hook, just a theory, 

I think this (line stretch) is also part of it. I think when we all use to fish mono right through, a big part of the big strike to set the hook is to max out the stretch in the line as quickly as possible to apply the pressure to drive the hook in. This is not as necessary with braid as the distance the line stretches before it hits the limit and tranfers to the hook is signigicanlty less as you only have about 2-4m of flurocarbon stretching and not 15m to possibly 100m of line (beach and boat fishing). 

[BuckWild]

Might be a good question for Carl Jocumsen and Dean Silvester on the Facebook pages. Two Aussies who have actual fished the Bassmaster tourneys 

[Ozzybass]

As someone who has lived a few years in the US and fished a lot there, I agree with some of what Capt Spanner said.  Most of the US bass fishing we would see on TV, etc are Pros - this is a living for them.  They are competing with huge fields of competitors, unlike some of the pro comps in Oz.  A big pro comp there would field 100++ competitors.  Time is money!  They're not there for fun.  Largemouth mouths aren't particularly super-hard.  Bream mouths are much harder.

Other reasons -

(1)  Largemouths jump and Smallmouths jump even more.  Skiing them in quickly reduces the chance of them throwing the hook when they jump & shake their heads.

(2)  It also depends on the technique they're fishing & location.  During the Spring spawn bite, they're targeting bass holding around & defending their spawn beds & depending on location, they could be fishing heavy drowned scrub,  That's when they use their "flippin' sticks".  Ultra heavy action rods, 30-60lb line & very short, repetitive casts into small target areas, using mainly skirted jigs. I find it interesting that skirted jigs are starting to be usedr for bass in Australia, not that I've ever used them for Aussie Bass.  I thought they would be handy for cod. Those US bass pros can repeatedly flip (underhand short casts) those jigs into a bucket from 3-5m. The "fight" is brutal - its only a couple of seconds between the bite & the fish poled into the boat!