Eagle Claw Stick Guards

[CrappiePappy]

I too am not a fan of the fiber brush style weedless jigs. They seemed too stiff for me, or rather too stiff to set-the-hook in crappie. My solutions was to use light wire hooks and mono line strong enough to straighten out the hook. I have found anything like those locally.

The fiber brush style weedguard & the plastic Y-guard are fairly equal in stiffness ... but, neither one is too stiff to stop the hook from penetrating a fish's mouth. Just ask the nearly 3lb Crappie I'm holding in my avatar picture ... caught with a 1/16oz fiber brush guard style weedless jig & 4lb test mono, using a 5' UL rod.

Here's another pic, and if you look closely you can see the fiber brush guard sticking out just above the fish's upper lip (against the black background of my jacket - in either pic).



And another pic from a different angle :



The pics are a bit old (2007) so I was probably using one of Grousefly's 1/16oz weedless jigs with a #4 bronze Aberdeen hook (which is what I started with). I only changed hook size when I started using plastic baits longer/bigger than the 1.5" long Panfish Assassin.