I think alot of ppl use shower curtin clips with close pins.. are you using mono or braid line. I only have experience with braid.

Take the the line, if braid, loop it loosely around your hand 3 times, take the rubber band, slide it under the loops of line, then thread one end of the rubber band through the other end and pull it tight. Slide the loops off your hand and pull the slack out of the loops by pulling both sides of line. This will hold great and not slide and easy to break off the line if needed to change depth and will not knot the line up.

Now take the loop in the rubber band and set it halfway through the clip, or if using close pins, in the open k notch behind the flats at the end.

You should be able to get the rubber band to come out the release of pin without breaking it most of the time, reel it right up take off fish put right back out to same spot an reuse the rubber band again. I prefer the spank off method to release the band from the clips. I take up the loose slack by a few cranks, wrap the line around the reel a few times, grab the line in front of the reel and the pull with my left hand, point the pole at the clip I'm releasing g it from, take my left hand and spank down on the butt of the pole. Let the pole basicly pivot around the reel. This is a quick up motion, it's about the speed, it not like a strong pI'll like setting the hook on a bass and ripping him out from under the log at the same time. Your not pulling the pole at all. But the band should just pop off and let it float back while keeping the pole up to keep tension on the fish, slowly back you loops off the reel,and when read and cleared the lines reel the fish in slowly and bring the pole from up high to down more level while reeling in.

The rubber bands most use are only like 1 inch in diameter. If you have crazy stiff rods they are hard to read. I prefer a med or even med.light to show even the little fish. We caught a 8 in walleye on a bandit this weekend and had no issue seeing him take the bait. But it takes some time to see the differance sometimes they actually just swim with the boat and don't really show well. If pulling bandits you should see and constant vibrating on the tip of the pole, they have alot of action, sometimes the only clue us that vibraton stops. If it's not too ruff out you can see extra stretch in the rubber band too