Best Fishing Hook
Want the best fishing hook? Winter’s grip has closed off your favorite fishing hole in most cases to the North in the Midwest. Hard water season for some, but many do not fish in January. Both ice fishing and those in hibernation (our fair-weather fishers) can improve their fishing with one simple tool and improving the two key parts in your fishing attack. This season, you will fish with much better hooks, and you will add quality leaders to your plan. Ice fisherman can also use this to catch now – and Southern Midwest impounds that are open, but that have cold water can use these better rig ends.
The leader is the last portion of line on your rig. No matter what species you fish for, improving just the end of your line will increase the numbers of fish and the size of fish you catch.
Tip #1 – ditch the wire hooks. The majority of hooks sold are the cheap ones. I have to ask, why would the most important part of your setup – the end of your rig, and the part the fish sees, feels, interacts with and hopefully – EATS, be CHEAP? Cheap equals bad, in the majority of cases. I personally would rather not go fishing, than have to use a cheap, fat, dull and heavy wire hook off the shelf. A proper steel hook has been forged, is light, thin and has been chemically sharpened – the best sticking hook you can buy.
#1 Upgrade Your Hook
I will pick one brand that is more available than others and the model I fish the most is the Owner Mosquito Hook. For all my live bait and particle bait needs, this hook out-catches people next to me all the time. You will switch to these hooks and really start hooking up on fish. For the following baits, this hook performs! The hook goes into live bait easier – does less damage. My wax worm, minnow, spike or redworm will work for me – while my neighbor’s bait has been impaled, ripped and wrecked with a fat, big-barbed wire hook. When I throw my rig in the water, my bait will also fall, swim and wiggle in a more natural and slower way than my neighbor’s bait.
To test my theory, I created an experiment. I use with my students is that I take two fishing student volunteers. One volunteer will use the cheap wire hook and one will use the thin steel hook. I use a fence post as the wire hook and a hypodermic needle for the good steel hook. I put the fence post in the leg of one student, and the “steel” needle in the other student’s leg. When I say go, I have them both run to far away tree. The wire hook student, is a tiny bit sore, but returns from the tree. The poor cheap wire hook student, just rolls on the ground and passes out. The same happens to your bait underwater. With a fat, cheap wire hook, your chances of catching a fish die quickly, like your bait. When you go to the shelf, and reach for that cheap, wire hook (with the bird on the package), you are committing bait (and fishing) murder.
Back to why the steel hooks work. They are several times lighter than the fat wire. and they drop in the water column slower. This gives the fish MORE TIME to spot the moving bait. When your bait arrives at depth, it also will MOVE MORE. These two combine for more fish hits and the best live bait rig. The next reason they work better PHYSICS. The thin wire weighs less and fish can vacuum it in EASIER. Inactive fish vacuum with less power. Your Owner Mosquito hook (say a size 14 – my favorite) will LITERALLY travel further into the fish. Fat, bad wire hooks might not even travel into a fish’s mouth because the hook weight causes the hook to stop even OUTSIDE the fish’s mouth. The last part of the formula is that fish “feel” the hook in their meal. Since many species of fish sort through mud, weed and sand to find eat their meal – they are used to spitting out non-food items. Your hook is detected by them faster if it is a crumby wire hook (again- the kind with the bird on the pack), will be spat out MUCH FASTER than the best fishing hook. They detect bad, heavy and thick hooks easier. Because of this, my hook gives me MORE TIME, to see the bite and set the hook. Result – I catch, my neighbors watch me catch because they are bored ( and they are missing takes).
Don’t believe me? Try it side by side. If you want to waste your time with the other rod…
The best fishing hook is a size #14 Owner Mosquito hook, baited with 2 or 3 spikes ( blue bottle fly maggots). For perch, crappie, trout, bluegill, bream, and in slightly bigger hook sizes, channel catfish, carp, walleye and bass. Next month, I will give you the other half of the best setup in the leader – Tip #2 (the line and hook tyer).
If you just can’t wait until next month – Google “Ninja Snell Bait” and you can get your hands on the secret weapon (Snell Ninja™ Hook Tyer) that helps me make my own leaders with the best fish-catching hooks.
I create my own hook lengths of 6” – 12” with the best fishing hook and I catch a lot of fish. Before I fish (winter is a great time to prepare) I fill a card with extra hook lengths – already tied. Try it, and I bet you hear someone ask “what bait are you using?” This is because you will be catching a whole lot more than them. You’ll do so well, you might actually need to purchase a landing net.
