Tubes...How to?

[lrrpinman]

I've been very interested in try tube baits, but I have no idea how to hook them. What type of hooks should I use, and are certain tubes better than others?

Thanks

[Lunker]

As far as what tube brand is better than others, I think it just pays to experiment, everyone has their favorites. Color of course depends on what body of water you are fishing, but I stick with natural colors most of the time.

For hooking them: You can hook them basically the same as you hook a bass worm. Texas rigged with a bullet weight ahead of the lure works well, as do the internal jigheads made specifically for tube jigs. They also make tube jig internal weights that the hook slides through.

Use a search engine and type in tube jig images, and you will come up with many different techniques and pictures.

[Morneau132]

Just like this...

[mainbutter]

lunker's pics are for fishing weedless. It requires a very good hookset to hook a fish.

I hook my tubes like morneau's. I often don't use a weighted hook.

Tube baits work great around fish that have never seen a tube bait before.. If I was trying a very remote lake, tube baits would be one of the first things in my tackle box. Northerns will pound 'em early in the season, I haven't fished them much mid or late season.

They are my dad's fav. lure for SM bass.. He swears by berkley's tube baits, and I believe him. We fished a couple different brands back to back and side-by-side earlier this year. The bass didn't touch any of the other brands(though the northerns did.).

[Nick Kuhn]

I rig them weedless like lunker and throw them into thick cover. I've never had much difficulty hooking fish with them rigged like that, but they are about as weedless as you can make a bait.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Tubes are a great bait.. And as far as rigging them, it really is only dependent on your imagination. On a jig head, texas rigged, on a carilina rigged even wacky rigged, on a drop shot, or even weight less.. I have even filled them with packing peanuts to have them float and used them as a top water bait.