Fluke Hook Size

[Capt Sal]

Originally Posted by Fisherman120

Do people really need to make a fuss about anything? I support local shops but when I go through 50+ hooks a year fishing rocks I'm not going to bother with a retail price. I'm going to be buying from Palmers anyways who is a sponsor as I see he now supplies hooks which he didn't in the past.

One bass season when we were covered up with blues for two months i went thru 4000 8-0 j hooks lol We all use the local sponsor bait and tackle shops.

[ALS Mako]

Originally Posted by Gerry Zagorski

Much more difficult to detect strike when bait dragging. You got the sinker between you and your bait.

i have to disagree with you on that Gerry. we all bait fished before the bucktailing trend became hot. if you were bouncing your sinkers with the drift you could feel every pick up. it's those that actually let their sinkers drag that don't feel bites. proper fishing tecnique no matter what style dictates how and what you catch. just my two cents

[reason162]

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.

[mikeytheflop]

Originally Posted by frugalfisherman

I think the type of hook is more important than size. I use octopus hooks 5/0 which are more likely to slide back out a fishes throat than a straight hook. Also pay attention. If you sit there day dreaming while the fish swallows the hook that's no good. If I catch 1000 fluke over the summer I doubt if I gut hook more than 5.

I'm with Frugal here, as well as a few others. Its the technique, made up of a lot of jigging activity on my part and paying attention. I've landed my biggest fluke using octopus 2/0 hooks and same for me: 1,000 fish and gut hooking <5.

[SaltLife1980]

Its all in the way you fish. I went to jigging 4 years ago and have not looked back. I use 6/0 or 7/0 hooks for my teasers.

[Arbutis]

#4 red Gamakatsu

[makosnax]

If you're gonna drag bait, set the hook before it comes out of its @ss. I cringe when I hear " I'm gonna let him take it for a while so I know he's got it"