Tail hook thoughts

[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.

[BigFish]

I have never missed a fish on my Danny with the tag on the rear and 2 belly trebles! Matter of fact over the past 6/7 years I have been building plugs of all of the photos I have taken I could not help but notice that 99.9% of the fish I have taken are all on the forward hook?? Be they pencils, swimmers or spooks.....all on the front treble. Bluefish take the tail but my experience is the bass take the head. The pictures are all the proof I need. I also agree with Numbscull.....they can and often do alot of additional damage to the fish. One of the gents on here removes the rear treble from my "Prey" swimmers and puts the bucktail tag on the rear in its place and fishes it with the single belly treble and he seems to take many large with it like that? Just my opinion that if you have 2 belly trebles.....you do not need the tail treble.

[BigFish]

Also the best part is if someone does use my plugs...they can add a hook or remove a hook or customize how they fish certain plugs any way they want. We all like something different sometimes!

[Rockfish9]

Nummy pretty much echoed my thoughts....because I fish at night, slow is my montra, the tail hook works to keep that in check in most ( not all) cases...

as he said for the most part, big bass enhale their meal.... back before I carried a camera on board and everything went to the market, I had a 54lb bass enhale a goo goo eye that was being trolled on wire in the mouth of the river.... an average outgoing tide runs around 3 knots... I was crawling up against it.. this fish sucked in the plug and blew it out it's gills, how the plug made it by the rakers is a mystery to me.. the plug was imbedded in the back of the fishes skull....all three hooks...what that means I dont know.. a single hook would have been enough that night actualy no hook at all... 90% of my surface caught bass ( swimmers and poppers ) are caught on the front hook, the rear one, usualy acts as a gaff ...smaller fish tend to be the ones caught on the aft hooks...and I hate blue fish and would rather catch nothing... all that said.... I put rear hooks on most of my baits...

[Tagger]

favirote set up is 2 belly trebles and a flag .. I dropped the siwash tail hook ... Too many fish gaffed in the side or the eyeball with the dam thing ..

[PNG]

Originally Posted by Tagger

Too many fish gaffed in the side or the eyeball with the dam thing ..

x2+everyone else whom said the same. While I would be upset if I had and have dropped a biggy it wouldn't last long there's more out there...its just a fish. the big fish I have lost have been because of the siwash straightening. However some plugs need it so when I can not use one I dont

[Diggin Jiggin]

I usually go out of my way to avoid having more than 1 belly hook.
Almost every time I've ended up with a hook in me, its been unhooking a fish on a plug with 2 belly trebles.

Most of the tubes in my bag are narrow so a plug with a tail hook and 1 belly hook slide in with the belly hook hanging on the top of the tube. I think I've only got 3 spots forplugs with multiple belly hooks.

I decided to fish bigger plugs this year and most are set up with 2 belly hooks and need them to swim right. I'll probably end up doing 2 belly and a siwash tail. And now I think I need a bigger bag...