Hooking a cricket

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Originally Posted by JOHNS

When u say throuh the rear, does the hook point come out at the head and "show"?
JohnS

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If you don't bring the hook point "out", when hooking the cricket "rear to head", this allows the fish to grab the cricket by the head; without getting the hook point "inside" its mouth. This can lead to having the cricket become "gutted" (as the internals are pulled out of the body cavity, still attached to the head) .... leaving you with legs and a body shell.
It's also why "cricket hooks" are small gapped and long shanked ... so the hook point can "show", but still look like just another leg :p (that's my theory, anyway ... LOL!!)

As when using grasshoppers, when I use crickets, I remove the back legs (jumpers). Too often, smaller fish grab ahold of these protruding legs and swim off ... I see/feel that movement as a bite, and jerk .... I get a destroyed cricket back, and the fish gets the leg and any attached internals that come off with it. No big legs to grab = fish more likely to attack head end of cricket (where the hook point is ;) )

.... cp :cool:

Thanks

Are u hooking from bottom or top?

Johns

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Originally Posted by JOHNS

Thanks
Are u hooking from bottom or top?
Johns

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bottom or top of what ? the cricket ??

(if so)
Whenever I used crickets, I usually was using a #4 Aberdeen light wire hook ... and would basically thread the cricket on, inserting the hook point into the anus and bringing it out thru the neck. If bothered by "nippers" (short striking fish, or small fish) ... I removed the jumper legs. Otherwise, I'd leave the cricket whole.

(if not what you meant)
please elaborate ....


... cp :cool:

By removing legs does it not "remove" the "action" of the cricket?

Thanks
Johns

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JOHNS

By removing legs does it not "remove" the "action" of the cricket?
Thanks
Johns

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but, there's still the "other legs" ... the sight ... and the smell ... working in your favor. Not to mention the movement that you, or the boat, or the waves create. The removal of the jumper legs doesn't diminish the offering to the point of rejection ... it just decreases the chances of a smaller fish destroying the offering, before a larger one can consume it ... or gives the smaller fish no other option but to try and engulf the entire cricket (hook and all ;) )
The cricket is going to be stone dead after a few moments underwater, anyway, having either drowned or died from being impaled on the hook. In that case, the smell and sight factors take precedence.

... cp :cool:

I use a #8 light wire and hook behind the throat and come out the rear. I have never took the legs off of a cricket. The biggest hook I use for bream is a #6, in some of the rivers and creeks around here I will use as small as a #10 for the river red-bellies.

I have found over the many years, and vast experances that I have had is the thay this little old japaneese man showed me when i was bout 8 years old. Hook the cricket thru thr hard shell on his backstarting just behind his head, bring the hook out just after the hard shell ends. spin the hook so the bend is going twords his body and slide him up on the straight shank of the hook, noy the bend of the hook should be curving under his butt. poke the hook into his butt and your done.

hope this helps you out.

Big

I've always rigged mine like StinkiesDaddy!!!!! When done as previously stated above, the long hook shank lays flush along the cricket's back (top of the hook shank--where it's tied to the line; is usually just in front of or else securely under the cricket's collar and the collar/neck shell of cricket holds the hook shank flush and secure to top of cricket's back, and the hook point is inverted and then impaled into the cricket's hindside. As CrappiePappy stated, always use heavy enough split shot to get the cricket down deep as quickly as possible cause this is usually where your biggest gills are located (generally deeper in the water column than your small gills)...

i hav never used crickets for bait, i figured they would drown

I go in under the hard shell on the head sidecome out on the butt side roll the hook 180 deg and stab it in his butt. this way it hides the hook and the cricket stays alive a lil longer