It is not without considerable study that I advise you to hereafter never, ever "set the hook."

In my abandoned career as a fishing guide, I got to watch a fair number of fish get caught, and an even greater number of fish get away. Of those that got away, the majority were never solidly hooked, and many were not hooked at all. They took the bait, but for a variety of reasons didn't get stuck.

One reason for missed fish, with live bait, was because the hook point turned back into the bait, thus leaving no sticking point exposed. To reduce that problem I learned not to tie open-loop knots on livebait hooks; snelled hooks pivot back into a live bait only a fraction as often.

Other cases were more of a mystery. One was the fact that when I took out couples, the women almost always caught more fish than their more experienced husbands. At first I considered it an anomaly, but soon it proved to be the rule. That set me on the path to enlightenment about hook-setting. 

It's worth noting that most of my guiding was with live bait, primarily scaled sardines. These hardy little fish are strong swimmers and they buzz this way and that until, if one isn't closely minding one's bait, there are more curves in the line than in a watersnake's back.

Mostly of course, tourist anglers didn't carefully mind their baits. That didn't matter to the snook-they whacked the baits anyway, sending a strong signal up the line. And the reaction to that signal is key to hooking or not hooking the prey.

The men, without hesitation, usually whacked back with a mighty sweep of the rod. But because of the usual curves and loops in the line created by the swimming bait or by the tide or wind, most of the energy they put into it went into simply taking up slack. However, their hooksets did provide enough of a jerk on the line to let said snook know something was wrong with that particular shiner and, ptooey, they promptly spat it out.

The women, on the other hand, would be likely to say something like "I've got one!" when the bite came. The guide, me, would then tell her to "reel, reel, reel!" reinforcing instructions given in calmer moments. The woman would follow instructions, taking all the slack out of the line. When the line came tight, the fish felt the pressure, bolted, and set the hook solidly into its own jaw.

So it came to pass that I learned that the three worst words of advice in angling are "Set the hook!"

My real epiphany came on a tarpon trip with a guide who told me never to stick a fish, because that made them jump. When tarpon jump, it is done with much head-shaking that more often than not throws a poorly set hook. That didn't happen that day, however. I caught one on a fly and two on live crabs and he caught another-all mature fish-and we never missed a hookset or lost a fish. What we did was get the line tight by stripping the fly line or reeling with 20-pound spin, and then letting the tarpon set the hook by running against the drag. By the time they jumped, they were on for good.

Since that day I have fished through a progression that has me now setting the hook only when I have a relapse.

Another application where reeling is much superior to jerking is in fishing deep reefs offshore. There, the current causes many yards of slack in the line when you send a bait down to 150 or 200 feet. Again, jerking the rod only tells the fish something is wrong, but usually doesn't put enough wood to it to drive home the barb of an 8/0. But, if you reel like mad when you feel the bite, you're likely to reel it right into his jaw, especially since he'll help you by trying to swim off. And you've then got a better chance of getting him started toward the top, too, because your line is already bowstring tight.

And we're talking standard J hooks here. It goes much more so for circle hooks and kahle style, which are much harder to set by jerking. The circle-type hooks lever themselves into the corner of fish jaws, but only if you reel them into position and get out all the slack.

Reeling also tends to make a fish turn against the pressure, thus dragging the hook into the scissors of its jaw, where it usually is most vulnerable to a solid hookup-and at the same time less likely to suffer after release compared to being hooked deep in the throat.

One other technological breakthrough will help any angler with getting good hookups; no-stretch or microfiber lines not only signal a bite more immediately and at greater distances, they also give you a much more solid resistance. Once the slack is reeled out, the hook goes home and the fish doesn't, unless you want to take it to your house. With the drag tightened down, it's hard for cover-oriented fish like grouper and snook to bulldoze you because the line offers no give.

The moral of the story is that you might do well to change that time-honored advice from "Set the hook!" to

"Reel! Reel! Reel!"