[numbskull]

I don't like them. They snag eyeballs, snag you, puncture your waders, get caught in tubes, and make it easier for a fish to rub you off on the bottom and increase your ratio of small fish. Another problem is that until you get to 6/0's or better, there isn't a decent hook to use these days that won't bend under a heavy load (usually because when you get that far the front hooks have pulled and the fish is snagged outside the head by the tail hook). The old short shank O'Shaunghessys (how do you spell that?) were strong hooks, but these wide gap thin wire long point Swiashes are crap.

Big bass don't nibble at their food, they inhale it. I've fished a 3.5 oz Habs needle with skins nearly 2 feet long. One hook about 4 " from the nose. Usually I have to reach inside the fishes' mouth to unhook them. Bluefish are a different story, but dealing with thrashing bluefish and multiple trebles standing on a rock in the dark is not what I'm trying to accomplish.

The two occasions I think tail hooks are important are for plug balance and action (many plugs have a slower sexier action with a tail hook and darters can get skitish without them), and in current where fish often try to inhale the plug expecting the current to carry it back to them but your line prevents that from happening and they close on the tail. Another similar situation is trolling where the boat speed increases the number of misses. When plugging from shore at night the plug is usually going slow enough that a big fish isn't going to miss it and hit the tail.

Of course if I lost a 50lb fish because I thought I needed a tail hook, my opinion might change. But so far I've not had that chance.