I've been swinging a fly at a local river the last few days and have had issues with setting the hook. Bumps, taps and hits mostly stay that way.
Last night I was looking through an older fly fishing book I had to review what I might be doing wrong.
One of the techniques it shows is after you have cast and mend your line, make sure you have a loop saging between the finger holding the fly line and the reel. When you feel the hit, let go of the line and pull the rod toward shore to set the hook. What this does, according to the book, is give a bit of slack line to the fish so it can turn after it grabs the fly, then after the fish turns the hook gets set.
Tried it today and pulled in a nice 6-7" cutty and a beautiful 21" rainbow. Technique worked great for me. Will have to try it on the lake as well.
Note to self: Always bring camera as you never know.
Just thought I'd pass along this liitle bit of info for those that might be missing the fish when setting the hook.