What kind of hooks do you guys like to run? I have become very partial to Owner hooks. For whatever reason I seem to loose less fish with Owner hooks than Gamakatsu‘s, even though Gamakatsu hooks generally serve me well. I like to run smaller hooks than most guys in the salt because nothing makes me more upset than releasing fish bleeding from the gills or missing an eye. I like a 3/0 hook when targeting Kings. When mooching Kings I’ll use 4/0 hooks for the Herring and then 3/0 trailers, but for silvers I’ll use a 3/0 Herring hook and a 2/0 trailer. I’ve heard that circle hooks are worth experimenting with while mooching and I am hoping to give them a try. I feel like they are more suitable to the mooch bite where we don’t set the hook as aggressively.
Something I like to do for hoochies that most people aren’t doing is single hook rigs rather than double. 2/0 Owner Siwash on a swivel landed me lots of fish, and IMO the swivel made it easier to fight the fish. Only modification I am making next year is going to be crimping them onto beadchains rather than swivels, and stacking beads to have the hook stick out further back. I ended up with quite a lot of short strikes this year.
Hottest day of fishing I had maybe 20 silver takedowns in one afternoon including some doubles, but consistently the fish just didn’t hook up.
A deadly trick to keep the fish on the hook was adding a slight bend to the hook, it corkscrewed all the way through their head, but unfortunately that resulted in several missing eyes and one fish swallowing the hook. I’d use that setup when wild retention on silvers would be open but avoid it at other times.
Something I like to do for hoochies that most people aren’t doing is single hook rigs rather than double. 2/0 Owner Siwash on a swivel landed me lots of fish, and IMO the swivel made it easier to fight the fish. Only modification I am making next year is going to be crimping them onto beadchains rather than swivels, and stacking beads to have the hook stick out further back. I ended up with quite a lot of short strikes this year.
Hottest day of fishing I had maybe 20 silver takedowns in one afternoon including some doubles, but consistently the fish just didn’t hook up.
A deadly trick to keep the fish on the hook was adding a slight bend to the hook, it corkscrewed all the way through their head, but unfortunately that resulted in several missing eyes and one fish swallowing the hook. I’d use that setup when wild retention on silvers would be open but avoid it at other times.
