South Lake - cause of hair loss?

[AndyJ]

Fished 3 nights on the South last week. Excelled my usual standards by landing 6 fish to 18lb and 4 tench to 6.15. I did have a problem though connecting with a lot of takes (as many as I landed). The takes were mostly strong runs, but not absolute screamers if you know what I mean, some I bumped on the strike, others I just missed completely. Spent 3 days fiddling with hook types, hair length etc, but didn't seem to make a lot of difference.
Anyone got a view on a)whether they were likely to be tench/small fish b) Matts Corner could have been crawling with tench or c) I'm a complete tw*t?
Cheers
P.S. Thought the water looked fabulous and the bailiffs were all tops - v.helpful

[Sim0n]

....sounds like tench 'trouble' m8...try 'D' rigs, or mounting your baits on tha back of the hook maybe... had this before where the fish are bolting with the bait held firmly between it's lips, right up until the strike anyway!

[Tannersboy]

We had the same trouble a couple of weeks ago, Matts corner was infested back then.....Had about the same take to landed fish ratio....D rigs definately worked for me, had some beautiful hook holds, one of which took about a minute to get out even with forceps!!!!! Ant decent mirrors or mostly commons?

[AndyJ]

Cheers lads.Went down to short hairs - but obviously not short enough! The 18 was a mirror and I had another mirror of 12lb off the surface. The rest were commons around 10lb.