Thread: What's the best hook to use for gills/redears?

i like a gold eagle claw light wire aberdeen, #6

I strictly flyfish for bream and big gills down here on Lake Okeechobee. I use a size 8 Gamakatsu C-13U keel style flyhook. This is a very thin wire hook thats strong yet is much easier to remove from the fish when they inhale it. The thin wire hook seems to work much much better from my experience. I slide a tiny bead head on my line first, tie on the hook and then rig it with a Mister Twister Exude nymph. I catch alot of big ones and its always fun to outfish the cricket/minnow fishermen. The Gamakatsu hooks are a little pricey but when I find a combination that really works I stick with it. Just my 2 cents.

I am convince a #12 hook on a jig is the way to go, after receiving some from Jiggin Joe and giving them a try the results where just totally awesome. Though the small hook would get allot of small fish, boy was I ever wrong.

It convinced me so much that I bought some jigheads myself to tie up in some different colors. 1/100 ounce jig on a #12 is the way to go.

I have downsized over the years, I have been using daiichi fly hooks in size 16-20 most of the time for panfish. Very seldom will i ever go larger than an 8 for bluegill but that would be for small jigs and that is my maximum size. Size 12 is ok but i really perfer size 14 and smaller.

Originally Posted by robbor

I have been using ... fly hooks in size 16-20 most of the time for panfish.

Ditto. I mostly fish with maggots, and #14 and #16 dry fly hooks are my standards.

Those Tru-Turns work very well for me also. I use #8 for gills and crackers and a #6 or #4 for sacaulait (crappie).

I like tru-turns, but usually use a #8 or 10 for live bait. I catch an awful lot of big gills on #14-#16 hooks I've tied flies on. If they're taking ti you won't miss many more using a smaller hook.

Been using a Eagle Claw Aberdeen Size 4 for over 20 years and has been productive for us.