Feel, when to set the hook

[Tall]

I am having a tough time with my timing on setting the hook on Carolina rigs. Caught a 8.64 large mouth last night but like most, even with Texas rig the hook is in the gullet and bad news for the fish. I know to cut the line, but it seems to be too late. If they don't swim off with the line like last night in the dark, it is tough to figure out how long to wait.

My question is do any of you have a routine down, or pattern that may prevent getting the hook so deep? I seem to miss so many if I don't wait. I use the large wide gap 4 and 5 hooks.

I am just getting back into bass fishing, but have only fished very stained waters in SE Arkansas in years past with spiders/large spinner baits. This clear water big lake fishing is a new game.

I have done a lot of research on the net, hence running across this site looking for information, for night fishing for bass, to season patterns, and how to locate bass in lake such as Ouachita, Degray, etc in Arkansas.

I have the bug to do some tourny fishing but at this rate I would go hungry much less not place in the money, with all the DVR fishing shows I have taped and articles I have read and researched I have increased my knowledge a lot, but have a long way to go. The 8.64 and 4.54 was a lot on pole bending and fun last night.

I know nothing will take the place of time on the water, but some of your trail and error knowledge could save time if you wished to share the experiences.

A lot of good topics here at this site I might add.