Do you ever fish with a lure that has no hooks ? I do under certain conditions.

[cyclops2]

  Kids that do not want to hurt the fish.  Use it to attract and bring fish into a childs casting range.  I have my limit of 6 big Yellow Perch for a friend.  I  really enjoy getting them to gang up on a lure.        👍

[Bankc]

Not me.  It kind of defeats the purpose of fishing for me.  

But I ran into a guy about a year ago who was doing this.  He was pre-fishing the lake for a tournament and didn't want to actually catch any bass he found.  He just wanted to know where they were and what they were biting.  He was worried if he hooked them on the bait, they may not bite it again in a few days.  Made sense to me.  

[gim]

[Tennessee Boy]

When I was a kid I liked to drive my grandfather’s truck that had no wheels.😆

[PaulVE64]

I dedicated one spring to getting better at jig fishing. I dragged a 3/8 egg sinker over a pond bottom for hours. It really helped but it wasnt really fishing.

[Swamp Girl]

27 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

When I was a kid I liked to drive my grandfather’s truck that had no wheels.😆

 

Remember how I tried to run circles around you on my bike with no wheels?

[Mike L]

No hooks? Never

I don’t see the point, especially with kids.
What gets them hooked on fishing is the excitement of the hit and the fight with the added bonus of a teaching point for me of everything they just did. 

Add in the overwhelming feeling of seeing and feeling of what they just accomplished on their own makes it all worthwhile. 
 

 

 

 

 

Mike

 

 

[casts_by_fly]

Once, for steelhead, I did it to prove a point.  When fish are ganged up in clear, shallow water with an obstruction above like a waterfall (there's a particular spot in Erie known for it) they are basically stuck.  They sit in the current with their mouths sometimes open, sometimes closed.  Guys will throw single eggs and egg flies at them and at the time people would claim catching dozens in a morning on fish that really aren't interested in eating or hitting anything due to the pressure.  'Flossing' was theorized which is where you drift the line at just the right depth and it catches the fish's mouth.  The current then pulls the line and the hook into the fish's mouth.  Guys said there's no way that's possible so I set out to prove it wrong.  Its very clearly possible, especially when you have clear water.  I cut the hook bend off a bright pink bead fly (a popular choice there) and started casting.  A bead is almost neutrally buoyant so a little current is enough to keep it up off the bottom a couple inches.  A small split shot will roll in the current also.  So 2' of line between the two gives a lot of leeway to put it in a fish's mouth.  In 15 minutes or so I could do it pretty much on command and watch the pink egg go right into the fish's mouth.  Some times they would grab it out of reflex, sometimes they would bolt.  Either way if there was a hook on there it would be a 'caught fish'.  After seeing that, I never fished that spot again.

[king fisher]

No, but more days than I care to admit it wouldn't make any difference if I did.

[TnRiver46]

Back in my younger days we had to stand in downpours all the time and “guide” for trout. My pack full of fly boxes was always sopping wet, I don’t think it dried out for the better part of 2008-2010. A lot of those size 18-22 hooks would be rusted. Depending on how friendly (and attentive) the fisher person was, I would sometimes let them fish with the rusted hooks . They broke in half on the extremely late hooksets, clients couldn’t figure out why they missed the fish. I would just say toss it back in there and try again and they would miss several more bites because they didn’t have a hook point. Trying not to laugh was the hardest part 

 

 

if anyone ever books a guide, don’t be a jerk or this could happen to you 😂 

[Bird]

Was sitting in my tree stand once and realized I was hunting with an unloaded gun.

Not tried a lure without hooks.....yet. 

[Pat Brown]

I have heard that it's not necessarily the hooks that make em stop biting a bait so much as recognizing that it is not a food item.

 

I would never give my bass a freebie like that it's hard enough to catch them as it is!

[WRB]

A-Rig decoys no hooks.

Tournament pre fishing no hooks.

Marlin trolling teasers no kooks.

Tom

[herder]

Striper fishing I hit an area where they were absolutely smashing a white Storm Wildeye.

Snapped one off on the cast and hastily tied on another one, then proceeded to miss the next bunch of hits, then I saw that I forgot to take off the rubber hook guard  🤪

[bloom]

Several years ago I talked to an old timer who fished muskies in the fall with large suckers and no hook.  He would somehow tie onto the sucker in the middle of the body, he would allow the muskie to swallow the sucker and the sucker would turn sideways in the gut and the muskie would not be able to spit it out.

[Bankbeater]

Around here fishing with no hooks is called letting the fish learn the bait.

[Team9nine]

No, but I’ve fished with a rod that had no reel many times 😉

[Scott F]

I fished with a guide in Canada for pike and the guide was throwing a Moss Boss plastic spoon with no hook. He’d throw it deep up into the reeds where the pike were hiding. The pike would follow the lure out of the reeds. With no hook, the lure wouldn’t hang up. Once the pike were out in the open, they were much easier to catch with lures that did have hooks.

Learning tricks like this is just another reason to hire a guide.

[N Florida Mike]

Not sure I’m understanding the concept…🤔.

I have a hard enough time catching them WITH hooks…