beardown34

thanks primetime. i was just wondering, is it possible i just got crappy gama hooks? i dunno, i bought them off the shelf at walmart (closer to me than BPS). for now i'm going to try dialing back the drag, and trying to get to the shore and lip the fish closer to water level. i do tend to feel more confident in keeping a fish buttoned up by keeping the barb on my hooks, but clearly that makes it difficult to easily remove the hooks sometimes. maybe i'm causing some damage to the hooks during removal. i've tried the straight shank hooks. it's very difficult for me to keep the hook point weedless after even just 1 fish. these residential ponds i fish have scum galore so staying weedless is necessary.

thanks for the input primetime. i've read that those trigger hooks end up hooking humans better than they do fish. but those bait buttons are a cool idea. i'd never heard of those before. very glad i asked the question here. thanks guys!

awesome idea megastink. i didn't have rubber skirt collars, but i do have other rubbers ... trailer hook tubing of course. i didn't want to add too much resistance under the frog's butt, so i only pierced through one side of the tubing. plus this way i don't have to re-penetrate the plastic for skin hooking, which will hopefully help preserve the bait. i'll test it on the water tomorrow and if it stays up great. if it slides down the hook then i'll try piercing through both sides of the tubing. thanks for the idea megastink!

I will pay more attention to my hook extraction, but I will say that I make it a point to grab the hook eye and push in the same axis as the shank of the hook. if that caused any damage, i would imagine that motion would cause the hook point to deviate downwards, towards the bend of the hook, as opposed to up and outwards towards the sky, like mine are.

I was so excited to try out the Z-man Hard Leg Frogz and they finally arrived today. I rigged it with a 3/0 EWG hook and haven't fished it yet, but just holding it upright, I'm having problems with the butt end of the frog sliding down the hook. the problem is there is so little plastic for the hook to sit in. not only is there a hook slot on the top side, but there is also a belly slot on the under side. i understand the concept of wanting less plastic for the hook to have to travel through, but now there is so little plastic to keep the lure from sliding down the hook. and because of the hook slot on top, there isn't really any plastic to stick the end of the EWG hook into. for now i've just buried the tip of the hook back into the hook slot, but i'm guessing after 1 or 2 fish that plastic will tear, and then what? has anyone come up with any solutions for this? i also noticed this was the case with the Culprit Marsh Frog. Would it help to bring the hook point up farther back (away from the hook eye) or closer up (towards the hook eye)? or maybe instead of coming up through the middle of the belly slot, come up just a tiny bit off to the side, so the hook grabs a little of the thicker part of the frog's body instead.

OK I will see what life is like not bank flipping these fish. so the general consensus is -- i should NOT have to use superline hooks when fishing texas rigged plastics with 20# braid with these <3 # bass? while i'm certainly happy to get away with using the economical 25pk BPS hooks, i guess aside from not bank flipping them i'll have to try dialing down my drag. i had also had tremendous success and longevity with zman plastics. i caught 31 fish on a single big TRD (the new 4" ones), before i lost it due to knot failure (i was testing out a san diego jam knot. i'm sure it was user error on the tying). i bought a pack of superline 3/0 EWG hooks to pair with my zman plastics. i may never have to change a hook or plastic again! (sarcasm .. a little)

flyfisher how tight do you set your drag when fishing texas rigged plastics? and do you expect your drag to slip on the hookset?

durn, i thought i would be ok with these < 3# fish. although it's certainly not impossible to reach into the water to lip these fish without bank flipping them, it would be a little awkward in a lot of spots. especially since i do a fair amount of my fishing at night and in the early. and light or dark out, i like to be able to see where the hook is before lipping the fish. speaking of not hooking myself though, now that i think of it, i bank flip treble hooked fish and have not yet encountered a bent hook. whopper plopper 90 mostly, with stock hooks. regarding the hook removal question above -- how do you damage the hook during the removal? with pliers?

btw Tom, I've read many of your posts on other threads about using straight shank hooks for texas rigged worm fishing. I love the idea of it, and the BPS straight shank hooks are definitely noticeably thicker than their offset round bend hooks. But man, for the life of me I cannot keep the hook point weedless after it breaks through the first time. At least with creature baits there is just more plastic to work with, but even with those I have a hard time keeping the hook point from poking through. I use the heat shrink tubing trick and that does a decent enough job keeping the head end from sliding down the shank.

Great question. That's a variable I hadn't thought of. I think I remove the hook ..normally? Just with my right thumb/index finger while lipping with my left. This shows a representative set of fish and hooksets. I think it's understood, but in case not, I mean my hooks are getting bent, not fully straightened. For example with the EWG, instead of the hook point just being pointed 3 degrees offset from the hook eye, after a few fish the hook point is pointed 10, 15, 20 degrees up. Enough so that it makes it hard to skin hook my plastic. And when I tried bending the hook back into shape, what I found was that I began missing hooksets, I'm guessing because the hook point is flexing open, as opposed to driving into the fish. On those missed hooksets the hooks came back even more deformed than before I had bent them back.

thanks for your quick input. so you have heavier line, and i presume at least as heavy and likely heavier powered rods. i also presume your hookset mechanics are better and exert more force than mine. so what other variable ... do you have your drag dialed back? are you using a gentle-ish hookset, like a sweep, as opposed to the twist-body-uppercut-rip that i use? are you lipping your fish in the water, and never hoisting them up in the air by the line?

Hey everyone, I have several questions about trying to stop straightening out hooks. I'd love your input. I use a 7'1" MH spinning reel from 13. From what I can gather, it tends to be on the lighter side of MH. I have it spooled up with 20# powerpro and 17# vicious FC leader on a Pflueger supreme SUPS30 reel. I fish residential ponds -- avg ~ 1.5-2.5 #. Seasonal blooms of algae but no real underwater cover to speak of. Starting July I really started fishing Texas Rigs. I am using both Gamakatsu (not superline) and BPS 2/0 Round Bend Offset Worm Hooks, as well as both Gamakatsu and BPS XPS Superlock 3/0 EWG hooks. I'm finding that I am bending out my hooks pretty much after 2-3 fish. I usually have the drag fully dialed down, because when I dial it back even 2 clicks, I am hearing the drag slip on hooksets. To avoid dragging the fish through and across the brush that lines the shores, I do lift the fish out of the water (a boat flip, without the boat), but I quickly lip the fish and relieve the pressure off the hook. Again, these are 1.5-2.5# fish. I have a pretty decent stock of braid to go through so I'm not really considering switching to FC or mono. 1) My ultimate question is -- do you HAVE to use superline (or equivalent, thicker gauge) hooks when fishing texas rigs with braid? 2) If it is possible to use these regular, non-superline worm hooks with braid, what is the solution? Dialing back the drag until you find a happy medium where you generate enough force for the hook to penetrate, but not such much that it bends the hook? <-- is this happy medium possible? 3) Let's say you have the exact same rod, reel, drag, hook setup, but one setup you have 20# braid and one setup you have 10# braid. And on both setups you feel the fish and perform the exact same hookset -- assuming the drag doesn't slip, do both 20# and 10# setups generate the same force at the end of the line? I don't expect these regular worm hooks to last forever, but jeez they should last more than 2-3 fish. I'm guessing I have to start dialing back the drag until I actually start losing fish because the hook isn't penetrating the mouth.

just for clarification -- is your intolerance directed towards the people making or the people watching the videos? or just a big generic dose for everyone? to say 'getting out and doing doesn't matter nearly as much' -- the overwhelming majority of the videos from the people i believe most people here are complaining about are of them fishing. yeah they also include the before and after material, but the meat of it is them fishing. but i agree with you. people should have more dependency on themselves and care less of what others think of them. like filling 4 pages worth of everyone agreeing with each other while directing negativity towards people who are not here to defend themselves. that isn't group think at all.

Great job!

it seems like the feelings on this subject vary fairly predictably by age -- both chronologic age and fishing-experience age. i'm not too much older than the youtubers presumably in question (the crew of Jon B, APbassin, 1rod, LunkersTV). a big difference is i'm married with kids. i only began fishing last year, but if i could have spent a large portion of my younger years (1) fishing; (2) screwing around with close friends; (3) fishing while screwing around with close friends, i definitely would haven done it. Jon B's first posted video has an upload date of 2009, and he looks like he's barely a teenager. that gives me the sense that he flat out loves fishing, not that he wants to peddle product. it's not their fault that there was a simultaneous emergence of gopro's and high quality mobile videos are infinitely more available now than in all of our past's, and (platforms like youtube, snapchat, instagram, that can broadcast such videos. and as they are now college aged and older and it's time to make some money, why not merge that responsibility with their hobby? if i could have made money having fun with friends and fishing as opposed to working the graveyard shift at the computer lab, you better believe i would have. i'm not defending them from a personal standpoint as i don't know any of them (although it appears Jon B is also in the north Chicagoland), but i definitely do find their channels and content amusing and educational. plus, take or leave the music, but the video production on at least one of those channels is pretty remarkable for a 'normal guy.' for me, it's immeasurably helpful to be able to watch someone fish from the bank -- positioning, casting and hookset mechanics, working a lure, landing and releasing the fish. i realize all of this is second nature to a lot of folks and is not worth watching -- that's not their fault. i've never bought any retail product because of their videos (but even if i did, so what?), but i have definitely improved various presentations because of them. and it's only with the tremendous breadth of information available online (not just their channels) that i've been able to introduce the sport of fishing to my 5 and 3 year olds. it seems to me the hosts of other available fishing content all look like this. talk about product pimping.

i saw a beauty in a skirt and was about to fall in love until i looked underneath and found a big hook.

That reminds me of what my son (5) did to his sister (1)

I must need stickier hooks! I fish my chatterbaits with a MH but I really slow roll it. I'm not confident that the pace of that reel/retrieve will get the fish to hook itself.

Yeah you certainly look very proficient with a chatterbait on your line! The chatterbait bite was on fire in early spring but i was getting tired of fish coming off with the original chatterbaits. I ended up buying some shakey blades and attached them to horizontal line tie jigs of my own choosing (mostly n*t*ch) and the hookups are much better. Learned my lesson not to skimp on the O rings!

Nice production. Your hookset on those chatterbait bites seems so gentle. It's surprising to me how well those fish were hooked, considering the reputation of zman chatterbait hooks. Unless you have one of the newer models

Followup. I've only tried the Franken lure on the right, the 6" yum dinger. It caught 3 fish and then tore apart in two places. The vertical separated from the horizontal, and the yum dinger split right in the middle. Kind of difficult to revive even with Mend It. But it did work! My bigger problem functionally is I have no patience to wait for these weightless plastics to sink, and I fish skinny waters. My favorite worm presentation is a texas rigged worm with a 1/8oz unpegged bullet. Point being, kicker fish makes a retail version like this but I wonder if it would also tear easily at the middle.

strongly recommend a higher quality (not necessarily much more expensive) buzzbait. you'll find that the better ones allow you to reel them SUPER slow but still keep them above water. i started off with those strike kings and i would have to burn those back just to keep them above water. check out TW i use 1/4oz buzzbaits, and have had good luck with : war eagle ($4.49) megastrike cavitron ($6.49) revenge ($6.79)

what is the thinking behind larger hooks helping you set the hook with a medium rod? sometimes if i'm out with my toddlers i'll just have my medium rod with me, and like you i've found that the hooksets frequently do not penetrate the bass's mouth.

Do you mean the hooks are significantly more likely on break if you keep a plastic rigged on it? I usually keep 3 ned rigs all pre-rigged in my tackle box.

The slide off weedguard? (TW)