An observation regarding bass strikes.

[Bird]

Was fishing a pond over the weekend and was having success with a whopper plopper 90 until I snagged a cattail " plant " .

Worked the bait free and continued to fish. 

After missing 4 fish in a row I inspected the bait and noticed it was missing the forward treble hook, the one located in the middle of body.

 

This is surprising when you think how good the hookup ratio is with buzzbaits and only having a single rear hook but a WP was completely ineffective with a single rear treble. 

 

The water was clear and actually witnessed a fish hit the center of bait twice while i changed up to twitch. 

Perhaps I've never paid mind before because never lost a treble on a WP but do remember using a rear hook only hula popper and missed quite a few fish on it.

 

[Skunkmaster-k]

Pesky cattails. 

[papajoe222]

Which treble hook ends up in a fish's mouth is a good indication of its activity level.  Bass will strike a bait head first and more often than not either get the whole bait in their mouth, or the front treble.  A bass that inhales a bait from behind is normally hooked on the rear treble.  This goes for any bait with multiple treble hooks, not just a WP. A Hula Popper, on the other hand, is a much smaller bait and as such is easily taken into the fish's mouth whether its from the front, or rear.

[Deleted account]

I find over 80% of WP (110) fish are hooked on the front hook. Big ones usually have the rear one on the opposite side of the mouth, and smaller ones somewhere in the gill plate.