merc1997

my point is that having your hook as sharp as possible factors into catching big bass. i catch over 100 bass over 5 lbs. every year. i fish table rock lake mostly, but do make an occasional trip to other area lakes. i am 59 years old, and have fished since i was big enough to hold onto a cane pole. i really have no problem with anyone that likes to use hooks right out of the package. my comments were to help those that want to improve their catch rates and perhaps get that bass of a lifetime. big bass have a very tough mouth, and when going through tough bone structure hooks straight out of the package just will not do it for me.bo

you may fish with your hooks as you want them. i will fish with mine sharper than they come out of the package. how amny bass over 5 pounds do you catch in a year?

you just have to let the fish tell you if you need a rattle or not. i have times that you needed at rattle to get a bite, and just the opposite. bo

tomi have used gammies, eagle claw, and mustad all with good success. i can not say tht i have a preference of one over the other. eagle claw 426275 is one. mustad 32786bln is another. i can not recall gammie's number. one thing that i do prefer when i can find them is to get those same models with a horizontal eye. with a horizontal eye, you have a bit more leverage in turning the hook up, as you are pulling from the top of the eyelet ring as opposed to the front of the ring on a vertical eyelet. those few degrees make lots of difference. another good hook is an owner 5383-138. it only comes in one size, but it has more bite because the leg of the hook is a lower profile because it is a compound bend. with it you are not losing much bite room over your straight shanked hook, but have the advantage of having a lever to help stand the hook upright. hope that makes sense. bo

another thing that i forgot to mention about j-bend, and sproat style hooks is that the straight faces of the j-bend can catch and prvent forward motion of the hook preventing it from burying the barb. the same thing can happen with the slices in a sproat hook shank. when the plastic is peeled from them sliding down the hook shank, those slices in the hook shank can catch and also prevent forward motion of the hook, and there again prevent the barb from burying through the bass. i have boated bass, opened their mouth, and that is all they were hanging on, was the sproat slices. the barb was not even through the worm. bo

i use a 60 degree leg jig hook. a hitchicker is hung in the eye to secure the plastic too. here are the advantages. first, the plastic is not attached to the hook shank. it can not slide down the hook shank to block the throat of the hook. it will come through cover better because the head of the plastic is protected by the hook itself. here is the most important reason, and that is in the hooking physics. the leg of the hook is actually a lever and will always follow the direction of the pull of the line. when the hook is lying flat in the bass' mouth and you set the hook, the log of the hook will be lifted to a vertical position, and tend to hook a better percentage of bass in the roof of the mouth. i also prefer a round bend as opposed to an O'shaughnasee bend or worse yet an ewg bend. the pull line of a round bend is further away from the hook point. the pull line of an ewg bend is righ underneath the barb. what that difference means is that it is much easier for a bass to pry the hook out with as ewg bend. this most often happens when a bass is swimming away from you. because the pull line of an ewg hook is right underneath the barb the hook easily pops right out when a bass is pulling straight away from you. conversely with a round bend, the pull line is at the very bottom of the bend, and that makes it much harder to dislodge. perhaps i might do another video on the subject sometime and post it.

pork trailers will year in, year out catch more big bass than plastic. i am basing my opinion on fishing experience most of my 59 years. here are my favorites for my area of the country. i fish table rock lake most of the time, and surrounding lakes such as bull shoals, lake of the ozarks, grand lake to name a few. these combinations will work in any of them. from 50 to 58 degrees, a hair jig with a number 800 uncle josh spring lizard pup. 58 degree water seems to be where a rubber skirted jig begins to outperform hair. i use a 25 uncle josh crawfrog on the rubber skirted jig. i have actually used these same combinations in other areas of the country, including lake falcon, with great success. i know that many people are not familiar with an 800 uncle josh. combined with the hair jig it presents a very slender shilloette, and is a great match for the smaller sized crawdads the bass seems to like from 50 to 58. the 25 crawfrog is like a chunk but with long swimming tails. combined with the rubber skirt on the jig, it makes a much bigger target which bass here seem to prefer from 58 up in the spring and fall. by the way, in the fall when fishing at night, i revert back to the same banks that i fish in the spring. i fish the same combinations at the same temps that i do in the spring. bo

good job!! now try some hair.

tom you were just mentioning some hooks earlier in this thread. there are so many types and styles of hooks for t-rigging, it should be a complete thread all its own. as i recall, last time we discussed hook physics, we finally agreed to disagree. i would put a smiley face on here, but that function seems to not be working. in my own experimentation, i just feel that there are a lot of hooks that do a much better job of hooking the fisherman than they do the fish. as with most things we fish with, manufactues seem to make lots of claims without any science to back up their claims. better leave the rest to its own thread. bo

right tom. practice makes perfect is such a true statement. most fisherman at close range have decent percentages of hook ups. but, as we get further away from the fish things begin to change, and bad habits begin to show up more often. the end result of that is fish coming off during the fight because the hook was never fully embedded. the sciences of setting the hook is sure an interesting subject, and one that i think has never really been studied, not to my knowledge anyway. as you said about stretch with mono and floro. that is a great example that as we fish deeper, and with more line out using either of those two lines, my opinion is that one needs to use a rod with more backbone and length. in "yesteryears" deepwater fishing with mono, i used nothing but 7'6" heavy action flipping rods. this was the only way to move enough line with enough force to drive the hook through the fish. at least for me anyway. fishing is such a great sport. it makes us use our thought processes along with physical skills. and another great thing is, there is always more than one way to skin a cat. meaning that one certain technique might work for one but not the other. i just hope that some of our ideas and thoughts will help others to catch more fish. i know that i learn something new everytime i fish with others. life is a continual learning process, and i would suppose that when i quit learning, i might be ready to move on from this life. bo

this is a topic of many great debates! myself personally always set the hook with a bit of slack in the line. with a bit of slack in the line, imom there is much more impact on the hook. a good comparison would be hooking a chain to someone's bummper to tow them. if you take off with the chain taught you will just pull the towed vehicle behind you. but, if you take off with slack in the chain, most of the time it will rip off the bumper of the car being towed. we could also get into hook choices, but that would be another whole can of worms. bo

my eagle eye says that bass is in the range of 5 3/4 to 6. that is a dandy bass. good job!! hope you catch many more. bo

here is a rule of thumb that i use. fish as close as you possibly can. fishing deep water and searching requires long casts. after you catch a few and begin to determine the strike zone, close up the distance some. experience will help you with your distance. sometimes when bass are deep enough, even in clear water, you can fish them vertically. when getting close quarters when bass are shallow, here are a few tips. be as quiet as you possibly can. try to run the troller on constant. i believe that a constant sound will tend to spook them less than kicking the troller on and off all the time. close quarters is stealth mode. hope some of this might be of help. bo

there is one jighead on the market that truly will fish through rocks, brush, or vegetation. no need to have 5 or 6 different types of jigs. bo

my favorite fall bait is probably a spoon. everyone's preference is going to be influenced by the particular bodies of water they fish. i fish table rock which is deep and clear with lots of threadfin shad. the majority of the bass begin to herd up the shad into big schools in the fall, and flutter and jigging spoons are very hard to beat. i know there are lots of guys that will fish shallow here in the fall, but i am not really into covering miles of bank for a few bites. i am more into parking on a good school and loading the boat. bo

that is called marketing or built in obsolesence.bo

i have not tried a trokar, and i have not ever found any hook to be sharp enough out of the package. i use a high quality mill file on any new hook before i use it, and that includes gammie's, mustad, owner, or whatever. i can take any new hook out of the package tie to a piece of line and let anyone pull it through a cardboard box, and then i will sharpen that same hook with my file, and let the same person repeat the same procedure penetrating the cardboard, and i have not found anyone that thought the hook was anywhere near as sharp out of the package. the consensus is always that the hook took about half the effort after i had sharpened the hook. just sayin'. i know most people will not take the time to sharpen a hook, but as for me, i am going to put everything i can into my favor to catch that bass of a lifetime. bo

a spinner bait and a jig are both fishing tools. just like all the other lures(fishing tools) we have there is a time and place for all. myself, personally, consider a spinner bait a jig with attractors on it. most certainly a jig will get into tighter cover than a spinner bait will. but, when covering lots of water in search of the bass, a spinner bait might be a better choice. a spoon is a great search bait too. after you have located the school, it is often better to go to a jig or a t-rig worm to really delve through the available cover and structure. like tom said trial and error, but lots of on the water experience will help too. bo

it is so hard to explain to someone else what you are feeling and sensing about the "no bite". as tom stated lots of casts, and i tried to explain "attention to detail". not only just fishing with jigs, but fishing any other lure in your arsenal. crankbaits would be another good example. i want to be using a rod that i can feel every wiggle that crankbait is making. the slightest change in that wiggle cadence, and i am jerking. i hope that some of these tips that have been presented by everyone will help. fishing is such a fun and challenging sport. fishing with a jig and learning all the different feels, and what is bites is a challenge and nothing is a better teacher than to go fishing. hey, that is a great idea!!! see you at the water. bo

a bit more about not being able to feel big bass take your jig. this is so true. and, it is why that you must pay attention to detail. this means knowing how your jig should feel each time it hits the bottom. how long it takes hit bottom each time you pull it. the amount of resistance on the line as you begin to move the jig. everytime one of these key elements is different, you just might need to be setting the hook. over the years, i have caught way more big bass setting the hook on something that happened just a bit different than it should have. most people just keep right on fishing and never realize that little bit of difference was a fish. this is exactly why you shoulf be holding the rod in front of the reel with finger or thumb in contact with line. one other element of the hookset that holding in front of the reel that aids you is called leverage. you have most of the weight behind your hand aiding in a more powerful and faster hookset. bo

if i could only fish one lure, it would be a jig hands down. bo

i would like to add something to this conversation. i do not know if anyone paid attention to when tom was talking about his hand position on the rod. it is in front of the reel. i have taught lots of my friends over the years to hold the rod in front of the reel. there are several advantages in doing this. first and foremost is, you have much better feel. you are on the rod itself, and you can as tom does, run the line over your forefinger, or as i do and that is to run the line underneath your thumb. underneath your thumb is one of the most sensitive place on your hand. the next reason and certainly just as important as feel is hook setting leverage and speed. there is no way that you can hold the rod by palming the reel, or behind the reel, and generate the power and speed setting the hook as you do when holding the rod in front of the reel. i would imagine if anyone would ask tom, he might give you some of the same reasons for holding the rod in front of the reel that i did. bo

looked like an ordinary smallmouth to me.

bullet shaped heads do not hook very well. perfect strike tackle alpha jig is a great jig for swimming or fishing through any cover. it also has better hooking technology.