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Posts: 299
Location: Nowheresville, MN | Has anybody ever hooked and landed a fish only by the single hook on top of the rubber baits like dawgs, castaics, storms?
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Posts: 1716
Location: Mt. Zion, IL | The shad style swimbaits i use ONLY have dorsal hooks (2). I caught 119 muskies last year and probably 70 of those 119 came on the dorsal hooks. I also have caught fish by the top hook on mag dawgs, but it was not the only hook in the fish. |
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Posts: 2068
Location: Appleton,WI | I would have to say 90% of my fish are caught on the single hook,most baits with a added bottom treble just pins the fishes mouth shout. |
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Posts: 22
Location: geneva il | i call that the brain hook...they inhale it and it gets right in the cranium!.... no thats not funny.... actually i cut em off simply because i use my bulldawgs kinda like a jig in some pretty thick submerged trees... i would say that 75% of my hang-ups where on the single hook... after cutting em off i drastically lowered hang-ups... plus i never trusted that hook anyway, they are pretty easy to snap off simply by bending it, i wouldnt want to loose a big fish on what seems to be a weak hook! |
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Posts: 238
| Yes. |
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Posts: 299
Location: Nowheresville, MN | Interesting. So do you think if Dawgs didn't have the bottom trebles most of the fish would be hooked by the single hook? |
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Posts: 32
Location: Sherry, WI | maybe if the top hook was bigger (Mag Dawgs) like it used to be... |
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Posts: 358
Location: London, England | tfootstalker - 4/2/2008 4:37 PM
Interesting. So do you think if Dawgs didn't have the bottom trebles most of the fish would be hooked by the single hook?
If they didn't have any other hooks I imagine they'd all be hooked on the one remaining hook!  |
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Posts: 299
Location: Nowheresville, MN | Tim Kelly - 4/2/2008 1:25 PM
tfootstalker - 4/2/2008 4:37 PM
Interesting. So do you think if Dawgs didn't have the bottom trebles most of the fish would be hooked by the single hook?
If they didn't have any other hooks I imagine they'd all be hooked on the one remaining hook! ;- )
You'd think so, but half the time I can't hook 'em with three!  |
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Posts: 238
| Ive had fish pinnned only on the single when landed and had to cutt the hook off and then caught fish on the same bait without it there so who knows?There are to many variables at play during the moment of the strike to know exactly what happens between strike and net.I belive sometimes a fish has a combination of hooks in it but manages to free it self or hook its self on more during the heat of battle.I do find it harder however to keep fish pinned on the storm type baits with only the one dorsal hook and heavy lead up front.If you let that fish get to headshaking and up on you or overtaking you with a wide open mouth,chances are the bait will get thrown,interestingly i dont find this to be the case with single hooked jigs.In the case of the jig i think it may be the weed guard preventing the hook from backing out or it may just be the better overall hooking ability of the jig?I still throw the single hooked swim baits cause they catch fish,but i do find i land more fish on the single/treble combination baits. |
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| i know this doesnt answer your question but have any of you thought of or ever tried taking all the treble hooks off of the bottom of bulldawgs??? (im talking about spring and regular sized bulldawgs) and if you have had you guys ever had problems with hookups or maybe someone who hasnt tried this but would have an opinion about hooking fish with only top single hook.....and my lake is quite weedy and the reason i wanted to take off the bottom hooks is because of the weeds because a lot of cast i cant get it were i want it without the bait snagging some weeds on the way back....but im not sure if id loose a lot of fish because it only as one single hook....any ideas of how to keep me away from the weeds???
and i know its pretty much impossible to stay away from the weeds.
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Posts: 358
Location: London, England | I often take the bottom trebles off and wire in one stinger treble from the line attachment point and stick it in just before the tail on the top of the bullie for hopping the lure along the bottom. Works fine, fish generally inhale the bait. |
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Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | If fishing a Bulldawg or other soft plastic in heavy weeds is the only way you can contact fish at times, then losing 3 fish and catching 1 is still one more than you would have had if not using that technique.
I would think you might catch some fish by removing both trebles and using only the single top hook. If you could wire in a treble on the top and still be relatively weedless, I would think your hooking ratio could be pretty decent. Maybe try wiring in a big spinnerbait hook trailer to the top if the treble isn't weedless enough (with the shank running parallel to the bait and the hook point up).
curleytail |
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Posts: 2024
| I was thinking something like Curleytail mentioned. If you could solder on a safety pin to the shaft of a spinnerbait hook you could pin the hook to the side of the BD (kinda like a quick-set rigged sucker), thread the trailer hook using the eye of the trailer hook and going over the point of the single hook on top of the BD. I think if you're moving the bait somewhat quickly through cover your hooking percentages will go down if you use just one hook, but as Tim said if you're just dragging them along the bottom slowly your hook-ups will still (probably) be pretty good. |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Creatures account for dozens of big muskies per year, and most have only the jig hook. Certainly no problem hooking 'em up. |
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