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For a minute, forget about taking fish. Merely cast and retrieve to get the feel of your lure. As you retrieve, keep your rod tip fairly well down. This produces less wear on your tip top and gossamer line while permitting you to strike the fish more quickly. Now, pretend a fish has hit you. Strike, man, strike! The slip-drag clutch, fortunately, will cancel your overstrike, but even so, don't come back too far. Better than rearing back, strike with a vigorous side strike. If you strike upward, the rod unfortunately goes into a reverse action first and thus gives the fish slack before picking up tension. And don't be so hard on that strike, the hook needs to be moved only a quarter of an inch to set it beyond the barb. Too hard a strike frequently pulls the hook through the tiny ligament by which the fish is held. Cast again. In retrieving, the important thing is to make the lure act natural. A gob of worms on a big hook even though fished through the most productive bottom-water may fail where a single wriggling worm, impaled lightly on a small sharp hook and drifted through the same pool without tension, will be something which the greedy old bruiser simply cannot deny. Or should you be using an artificial minnow, make it appear that he has been wounded and is struggling, occasionally turning, while the current sweeps him downstream, near the bottom. Even the most jaded lunker will be deceived occasionally into taking a vicious swipe at it.
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