Thread: Jig heads and hooks

Scrat, I use #2 and #1 in my 1/16 in 1/8 ball and pony's I use 1/0 and 2/0. Ifish big solid body and tubes on them. Rarely use 1 1/2 in bait except long lining and those are usually curly tails and #2and#1 work well in those. Caught a few yesterday all on #2 sickle and every one was hooked solid in the rough of the mouth. That's why I switched to sickles when they first came out.

I get better hookup with the smaller hooks.

Mainly I use 1/32 jigs with size 6 bronze or black nickle Aberdeen hooks on 4# GAMMA.
On a real tentative bite I will go down to 2# line, 1/48 oz heads with size 8 hooks and 1" plastics. From a stable platform with patience I can fish that tight line down to the bottom in over 20'.

For the tanged jig heads, I pour my own using the DOIT mold for weedless and just do not put in the weedguards giving me a reverse tang jig head for more open hook gap. For the ball heads, Nimrod poured me a pile of them on the salmon/steelhead #6 heavy duty black nickel hooks.

The tanged heads are for hollow 1 1/2" tubes. The ballheads are for the solid bodied plastics and for carp dough balls; I have not had one fail on carp to over 15# and even on muskies up to 40". Those fish were not lifted of course, either netted or beached. The heavier black nickel hooks also have a shorter eye stem which provides a larger open hook gap than standard size 6 jig hooks.

I do not like hooks that bend, because once bent, they will bend again and fail just that much easier. If I bend a hook on a jig, I replace the jig head with one that has a never-bent hook.