Best and Worst Hookup/Land ratio

[TonkaBass]

I was thinking about this and I was wondering what lure you guys think has the best odds of getting the fish to the boat, and the worst odds.

I would probably say:

Best- jigworm

Worst- lipless crankbaits

[RK]

Hmm...

Best - agree with you on jigworms, and I'd add grubs in there too.

Worst - topwater spoons in the slop. Some days, if you bat .500 with them, you're having a good day.

[Cecil]

Best- can't debate against the 2 already given.

Worst- can't pick between the 2 mentioned. I say %wise I agree with the spoons, they can be very frustrating, but I have learned a few tricks. Lipless is so frustrating because you have days where you get 50 bites and it seems like you lose the majority of them...

[TR21HP]

Agreed, nothing like a solid jigworm set and nothing as exciting or miserable as missing topwater bites, especially in slop.

[Larson15]

I would throw the frog in the mix as well. Seems like somedays I will get 15 blowups and no fish!

[ikeslayer]

they can be very frustrating, but I have learned a few tricks.

are you sharing these tricks or do we have to make all our own mistakes?

Yes agreed with the above - but it seems like i have lost some real heart breakers on texas riggs on in air jumps. don't know if it was just skin hooked and ripped out but keeping them on long enough just so that they can be seen doing giant headshakes on the surface - i think those hurt alot more than the blow ups.

[Cecil]

The best things I have learned is to make sure you use solid colors as they find them easier and don't be afraid to use a trailer hook. A wise policeman once told me this...

[fishuhalik]

I have a serious love/hate relationship with zara spooks for smallies. I love 'em cuz I see a ton of fish, but I'd say my hookup ratio is maybe 20% most days.

[RossT]

One trick for helping land fish on lipless cranks is using an EWG or triple grip for the rear hook, and a traditional round bend treble for the front hook. It helps a lot. But even on the best days fish find their way off the hook(s).

Cecil... those spoons are my favorite!

[goblueM]

i've had great success on frog hits, i'd say maybe 80%

and i've had good success with lipless cranks too, maybe 70%

must be a individual method thing, cuz i miss hits on jigworms more often

[Z-520]

Best= 1/2 oz jig

worst= trap

[Nick Kuhn]

I have a serious love/hate relationship with zara spooks for smallies. I love 'em cuz I see a ton of fish, but I'd say my hookup ratio is maybe 20% most days.

As the musky guys will tell you any WTD topwater is primarily a search bait. Fish will blow up on them a lot but rarely will they ever find a hook. The approach from there is to cast the WTD in the same spot a few times, if they don't hit it again throw something with a better hook-up percentage.

My best hookup is any worm t-rigger or weightless on an EWG hook.

Worst is topwaters of any sort, although frogs have an ok hookup percentage.

[mozy]

I've had the best luck on a wacky rigged senko. I don't know if I lost a fish on that setup this year. Worst is a jig and trailer. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but if I land 30% I'm doing pretty good. I generally wait a second or two after feeling the "tap", and then give a good solid hookset, but even if I feel the fish on the line it comes off when I'm reeling it in.

[Bass Whacker]

Mozy I would guess your waiting to long to set the hook with the jig set the hook as soon as you feel the tap thats the way i was told anyway and my hook ups went up alot.

for the bast id go with jig worm to and for worst spinner bait for me I've had major issues with those the last couple years.

[DeBo101]

One issue with the bass jig and trailer combo is to be sure and trim the weed gaurd. Most jigs come with too much gaurd. If your fishing light to no cover remove it entirely.

Anything with a single exposed hook gives me great hook up percentage. Lipless cranks have treated me pretty well soft action 6' 6" rod and mono has worked for me. Course I usually throw frenzys and they seem to have bigger hooks. Worst is any time I'm fishing the thick pads. Some days those fish just seem to always find a stem to get tangled in and unhooked.

[RK]

Hiya -

The other thing with jigworms is the jighead you use. I think a lot of the problems with jegheads (problem in my opinion anyhow) can be tracked to the "shaky head" fad getting so much attention nationally. (I don't care what Bassmaster calls it - I still call it jig worming. I refuse to call something I've been doing for 20-some years something different all of a sudden just because some southern bass pros finally got a clue )

Because of the shaky head thing, there are a ton of jigheads on the market with what are, in my opinion, absolutely lousy hooks. I know a couple guys who film tournaments for a living, and they've told me that the number of fish Tour level pros lose while fishing "shaky heads" is mind boggling. It's because they have jigheads with 3/0 or 4/0 heavy hooks on light jigheads fished with 8# fluorocaron on spinning gear. Look in stores or online and you'll see plenty of examples of what I mean. It takes a lot of force to drive that hook point through a fish's mouth, and if the hook happens to stick in bone or tougher tissue, the point catches a little bit but the hook never really penetrates. Fish jumps, jig goes flying - game over.

On the other hand, a high quality light wire hook takes barely any pressure at all to penetrate. Connie Peterson from Gopher Takle figured this out two decades ago, and his Mushroom Heads are still as good as it gets for jigworms. A good jighead with an Owner, UltraPoint, Gamakatsu or Matzuo hook has incredible penetration even with light line on a long cast. When I cast grubs for smallies, I'm using a 7-1/2' fast action medium-light power spinning rod with a large diameter long cast reel (Diawa SS 1600) and 6# mono. I can cast a 1/4 oz jighead and a 5" grub a *LONG* ways. Even at full cast I rarely miss a fish. Just tighten the line, and the hook will grind its way in. Once they're hooked, they have two options - come to the boat, or break the line. Shorter casts with 8# fluoro jigworming bass on a weedline it's even easier to hook fish. You rarely miss one.

If you're missing fish on jigworms, look at the hooks on your jigheads. If they're a heavy bronze hook, try a light wire version. Northland Tackle's jigworm heads are awesome (I use a 3/32 oz Northland 90% of the time when I jigworm). So are their Mimic Minnow heads. Yamamoto, Owner, Lunker City, and Gamakatsu all make great ball heads (I'm partial to Owners personally because they go up in 1/16 oz increments). Even if it's a chemically sharpened hook, stay away from large diameter hooks on "shaky heads" if you're using light mono or fluoro and spinning gear.

Anyhow - sorry for the rant, but some of the jigheads being marketed as "finesse" shaky head jigs right now aren't doing fishermen any favors when it comes to actually landing fish...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Fever]

Best hook up ration I'd say is a skirted bass jig. The big powerfull hook set accompanied by the larger gauge hook contributes to the High landing ratio. I personally have had good luck landing frog fish and for the most part top water. I do struggle with lipless cranks and smaller shallower cranks. I'm sure I know whay too. Smaller hooks, heavier non streach line, heavier (MH) baitcasting rods all contribute to lost fish due to jumps and large head shakes.

[ikeslayer]

so RK in your opinion - the current shakey head jigs - which is the best jig out there - I like light wire but is there one that is a longer shank? Something tells me you have done your homework!!!

[RK]

Hiya Ike -

Northland's Shaky Ball is pretty dang good actually. Davis Shakey Head SL is also awesome - has a long shank 4/0 UltraPoint, and you can get a 25-pack for about 12 bucks, which is a great deal. The Owner Shakey Ultraheads are also really really good. Light wire 4/0, have the coil keeper so they don't shred finesse worms, plus they come in 1/16 and 3/32 oz - and the hook is nasty...

HTH,

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[river rat316]

"Shakey" fishing and Jig worming are 2 completely different presentations.

[Larson15]

whats the big difference then?

[river rat316]

Shakey fishing is a bottom contact oriented presentation, hence the heavier jigs and weedless design. Jig worming is more of a glide bait that gets ripped from the weeds lighter weights and generally smaller worm, completely different jig head with way smaller hooks and not at all weedless.

For me the 2 baits are worked completely different, shakey heads are fished painfully slow, almost like your trying to sneak the worm past the jig, always maintaining bottom contact. Usually thrown on the edges in deeper water, only thrown when I can't buy a bite with anything else but know there are fish in the area. The worm I usually use is 6" or larger, it might take me 10 minutes to retreive a medium distance cast.

Jig worms are usually a lighter weight jig with a smaller hook, you can throw this anywhere, shallow, deep, weeds, wood. despite the smaller size imho its not as finesse as a shakey set up. Most of my time with a jig worm is throwing into the weeds and letting it get hung up in them and then popping it free. Doing this I can work all areas of the water column from up on top of the submerged weeds all the way down the edge to the bottom, I guess you could call it a finesse search lure, its not near as fast as your average search lure but if you know there are fish in a general area its pretty effective at searching the water column. These are just how I work the 2 different rigs, I am sure others work em different. Neither are my preffered method to catching fish, but I have adhd sometimes.

[TonkaBass]

River-rat- I totally see where you are coming from, but I also think that a shakey head is a spin off of a jigworm. I have many times fished a jigworm exactly like I fish a shakey, the main difference that the main stream has brought to this technique is a new style of jighead and worm. By the way my fav shakey head jigs are the Northlands and the picasso's...

p.s. I wondered how long it would take for big tourneys throughout the country to start jigworming...

[Superduty]

Regardless of what the rest of the world calls it, it's all just good old fashion jigworming to me...

I often throw a jigworm (even into cover) if I am getting bites but not hooking up. Sometimes a bass can inhale and exhale a bait before I can react with a hookset. If you don't believe this get an underwater camera and watch them under the ice hit a panfish bait and spit it out without the bobber moving. The light wire open hook of a jigworm will stick to them and give you a chance to drive the hook home.

[RK]

Hiya -

I kind of see the shaky head thing as a 'back to the future' rediscovery. It has an awful lot in common with the roots of Midwestern jigworming in the 1960s.

Fishing a worm on a jighead called a horse-hoof head' got popular around the Rockford/Chicago IL area, then two other new innovations (Harold Ensley's "Reaper" and Tony Portincaso and John Kotrba's Pow-RR head) were combined and it really caught on. Portincaso (in my opinion, a dramatically under-appreciated innovator), Chicago sports writer Bob Cary, plus local fishing club members like Dave Csanda and a couple wild kids named Al and Ron something-or-other really became converts. Their original technique was to use 1/4 to 3/8 oz Pow-RR or horse-hoof jigheads and bounces, shake and drag the jig and plastic along the bottom. The Pow-RR head was such an innovation because the hook eye was on the point of the wedge-shaped head, so it slid through cover better, and stood up on the bottom so the worm was waving above it as you dragged it along.

Later on Charlie Brewer's Slider head system came out of Missouri and Dan Westfall's "Westy's Worm" (a jigworm with a stinger hook) started more of a finesse technique with light line and light wire hooks. I think Connie Peterson's Mushroom Heads came out in maybe the mid-70s.

All that stuff still works. I still catch fish on Reapers every year. They rock on a 1/4 oz football head (which in a lot of ways is an improved Pow-RR head), and they're a great cold front plastic. Westy's Worms are still hugely popular out West (not so much around here though -. they don't fish all that well in grass - I've tried).

It's all variations on a theme. The guys who are talking about bouncing a worm and jighead on the bottom like it's something brand new are just rediscovering and updating something that's been around since the days when Buck Perry was a radical.

I do sometimes get annoyed when the "pros" pat themselves on the back for their latest discovery when they really could use a history lesson...

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9-14

Cheers,

Rob Kimm