Hey y'all, So I ran a trotline on Sam Rayburn last night down by the damn and I used half cut bait and half live bait I caught in my cast net on 23 hooks. Used to be 24 but that's another story. To preface this, I ran the same line with cut bait only on the north end of the lake last week, 14' of water, for two nights and only came up with two 5-6 pound cats, which I was grateful to have... but I thought there should have been more. So I moved to the deep water like I said above. I had to let the line soak for about 19 hours because of work and when I checked it I had two small flat heads (too small to keep) and a gar. And I was hung up. I tied off to the bank and ran out to 30' of water with an anchor. Every single live bait I had except one was gone or had a fish on it and none of the cut bait was touched at all. I am using 5/0 Gamakatsu circle hooks and I'm wondering, did the gar clean my line off, or was it bigger flat heads and my hooks are too small? What do y'all think? Also, I'm in a canoe instead of a sparkle boat so I may just have the wrong equipment for Sam Rayburn

Everybody has there own opinion on the matter but in my own opinion you let the line soak too long . It probably had fish on that got off . Good luck and keep it up !

If it was gar, I would think the cut bait would have been gone. That's a real conundrum! To test N's theory above, I would try 8/0 hooks on the next soak and see if you have more still on when you get to check it. Keep us posted!

I was afraid somebody was going to say that. I've been trying not to acknowledge it as a possibility but it makes perfect sense. Now I'm kicking myself.

Thanks Tim, I will try that and report back. I just watched one of your youtube videos btw. My son's name is Wyatt too

Watch out for them Wyatts... mine is a Texas Tornado!

The more time between running line the more the chances they have getting off. I agree with Tim on bigger hook 7 or 8. I know time is
tough on all of us but if you can bait at sundown and run the next morning at sunup would be best. Lot of different bait stealers between 10am
and dusk. If you catch a fish on 1/4 of your hooks is a very good day this time of year. imo

I knew I should have checked it in the morning but it was a 45 minute drive, I didn't want to muscle my 17' canoe around by myself, I had to be at work at 8..... I had all the excuses and none of them were any good. Won't happen again though. Thanks for the advise.