Fish wont load the pole

My cousin and I have been doing a little fishing in and around the river from the banks in various places. Everytime we have been the fish will not take the bait, they just sit there and play with it. We have been lucky a couple of times and guessed when to set the hook and caught a few. The bad thing is we use circle hooks so trying to set the hook makes the situation even worse normally. Does anyone else have this problem ? We always use live or cut bluegill. When we used to go out in my boat we never had this problem :confused:

Im assuming youre catfishing. What I do when I am getting a nibble but not a very hard bite is reel the bait in very slowly just a few turns until the line is tight and the bait has moved a little along the bottom. This will often trigger a reaction bite from the catfish and you will know when the fish gets serious about eating your bait. Another reason for these small bites may be smaller cats trying to eat bigger baits. If you continually get hits but no hook-ups, try a smaller bait that the fish can handle. I missed a ton of fish on my last trip and I tried changing hooks to Gamakatsu octopus hooks from Eagle Claw, I'll know after Monday night if that was the problem.