Freeing Fishing’s Hang-Ups
Published: Thursday, July 29, 2021
By: Dan Armitage
The angling adage that advises “if you’re not snagging your bait or lure occasionally, you’re not fishing where the fish are” holds water. The message is that most fish prefer to be near some sort of structure: rock reefs, dead-fallen sunken trees, flooded brush, submerged weed-beds, stone rip-rap, underwater humps, flooded stump fields, or man-made cover such as docks and the boats they secure. All these obstacles offer shade, protection, ambush cover, baitfish, and anglers’ targets: the game fish that follow. If your hooks are not getting fouled or embedded in something from time to time, also known as getting a snag, you may not be placing your baits and lures close enough to the structure that holds the majority of gamefish.
Granted, many of our favorite Great Lakes species, including walleye, perch, and salmonids, often relate to open water ‘structure’ in the form of water temperature, current, clarity, or the presence of food (baitfish or bugs), and they suspend off the bottom where getting hung-up isn’t a threat. But when you do get snagged, your actions determine how much trouble the situation represents.
The first and most important step is to resist the urge to set the hook or pull hard on the line when a snag first occurs. An immediate yank may free a few snags in weak cover such as grass or weeds, but an aggressive tug often only serves to bury the hooks even deeper, possibly making the hook irretrievable, breaking the line, rod, or all three.
Or worse, you can end up with an eye that looks like a goat’s. One of my best fishing buddies was throwing tube baits for smallmouth bass a couple years back when he hung up on the bottom and gave the rod a brisk tug to free it. It worked, but the lead-headed lure flew back and hit Doug square in one eye, the hook embedded in his pupil. Surgery saved his sight in the damaged socket but his pupil remains rectangular instead of round. Every time I see him, his eye serves as a reminder of the importance of wearing glasses—optical, sun, or protective—when I fish.
As an alternative to the instinctive tug, when you find yourself “hung-up,” first try to determine how deep underwater the hook is snagged. If it’s less than six feet or so, you can usually bring the boat right up to the snag and reach the rod tip down into the water all the way to the hook while reeling in the slack and shake or poke it loose. Even if you can’t reach the hook, sometimes the angle achieved by reaching as far down under the water and pulling gently from different directions will allow you to pull the lure or bait free of the snag.
No matter the depth, sometimes simply moving to the back side of the snag is enough to make it come out. This is especially true when fishing in Great Lakes tributaries when current conspires with submerged rocks to snare baits and motoring or wading upstream of the hang-up may be required to free them.
In deep-water situations and for the most persistent snags, a lure retriever will pay for itself after the first few uses. A very cheap—yet effective—lure retriever is a simple four-ounce bank style sinker. Simply attach a large paper clip or shower curtain ring to the end of the sinker, and then slip the paper clip or ring onto your line. Get directly over the snag and hold your line tight; the impact of the sinker sliding down to the lure frees most baits, and you reel the hook and the sinker up together.
Impact alone won't free baits that are tangled in fishing line or brush, situations when commercial lure retrievers can pay for themselves in a few outings. Most consist of a large weight connected to a stout line, a wire loop to fasten on the line, and mesh or chain on the end. If the impact of these heavy retrievers doesn't free the bait, the wire loop or chains tangle with the lure's hooks and the angler can pull it free and hoist both up with the tether line. Some anglers fasten their lure retriever to the end of a 30 foot retractable dog leash to keep the line neatly stored.
Several companies offer lure retrievers, often a wire spiral on the end of an extendable, telescoping pole. You slip the spiraled wire on your line to guide the wire down to the hook, at depths up to 18 feet or so, which can be knocked loose or other hooks on the lure will catch the wire and allow you to pull it free.
Sometimes the line-snapping technique called the “bow and arrow” will free a hook from an underwater snag that you can’t reach with any other method. With the rod and reel in your left hand in the 9 o'clock position, draw back about two feet of line in front of the reel with your right hand, making the line almost tight. Next, let go of the line in your right hand and simultaneously snap your rod from the 9 o'clock to the 12 o'clock position. This creates a shock wave down the line, often releasing the hook. It takes a little practice to get the timing down, but once the line snap technique is perfected, you may be surprised at how well it works.
If nothing else frees the bait, you may have to force the issue, risking breaking the line to free yourself from a tough snag. To break free, wrap the line between the reel and the first guide a few times around your hand, which should be protected with a glove or towel. Point the rod directly at the snag, point your face—and those of any other passengers who may be in the boat—away from the snag, and pull back steadily either manually or using the boat until the line parts, the snag breaks off, or the hook straightens and comes free, the latter two representing the best-case scenarios the next time you get hung-up.
About the Author
Dan Armitage is a popular Great Lakes-based outdoor writer and host of the Buckeye Sportsman show (buckeyesportsman.com), syndicated weekly on 30 radio stations across Ohio. Dan is a certified Passport to Fishing instructor and leads kids fishing programs at Midwest boat and sport shows, and is a licensed Captain with a Master rating from the US Coast Guard.
A version of this article appeared in the Summer Issue (July/August) 2021 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
tags: Accessories, Fishing
