Scott, I agree with your assessment of bait fishing. Last summer I saw hundreds
of stripers caught on 'chunks' in the Canal. Rarely were the fish hooked
deeply. In other areas I watch guys catch many stripers on sandeels. They always
released the fish very quickly, indicating that the fish were not deeply hooked.
When I livelined mackeral for striper I rarely hooked a striper deeply. Ditto
for livelining eels.
The guys whom I've seen deep hook fish would have their rods in sand spikes and
it would take them quite a while to reach their rods. Or they would allow the fish to
run for a very long time prior to setting the hook.
The same thing can happen when flyfishing if you are not in touch with your
fly. They will try to swallow it. For some reason I noticed I was getting many
more deeply hooked fish on unweighted patterns as opposed to weighted patterns
like Clousers.