I have been using Sickle hooks for a couple of years and this year was the first time I had any problem missing fish on them. The fish were hitting very hard and sucking the jig in very deep on the few that I hooked and I noticed they were just barley hooked in the roof of the mouth so I took the hook and bent the shank so the point was sticking up more and that solved the problem no more missed fish. So it could have just been the way the fish were hitting that day.