Re: Fluke Hook Size
It's not the hook size, it's the rig. If your hook is dragging behind the weight, you will frequently gut hook fish (esp if you're a rental rod). Look at any of John Skinner's underwater videos and you'll see how far a fluke will glide along the bottom, swimming with the sinker while eating your bait.
If your hook is above the weight (dropper loop/dropshot), you will gut hook very few fish, and many times they will hook themselves. Again, refer to the underwater videos, and notice how fluke that hit the top hook will try to head back to bottom asap.
Now the bucktail hook is attached to the weight, so even better.
I would really like to see an experiment done on one of our party boat sponsors: rig up a single dropper loop for one side of the boat for all the rental rods; the rest use traditional 3-way or fish finder rigs. Compare gut hook rates and catch rates. My feeling is once that water hits the right temp, dropper loop will outcatch by a wide margin, esp in slow/no drift conditions.
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