What is the best way to put a cricket on a hook?
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What is the best way to put a cricket on a hook?
Heres some ideas.:D
http://www.crappie.com/gr8vb3/showthread.php?t=19558
For some reason or another, the bream in Texas will not hit a worm, cricket or any insect if the hook point is showing....cover it up, and they'll slam it!!
You can throw a artifical or a tied fly to them with hooks showing and they'll eat it up too. Don't ask me, but that what it takes here.
Chris
Back when I bream fished, we would tilt the head back with the hook and hook right in the throat, then feed it through the body and come out the rear. This was from the belly side and worked for us for years. We did crawfish just about the same way.
I totally agree with Breambuster. I tip all my jigs. If the point of the hook is showing the fish will not touch it.
1) put the hook in under the head (throat) and bring it out the other end
2) put the hook in the "other end" and bring it out under the head
3) put the hook under/thru the "collar" (the shield segment that covers the back)
Removing the large legs, before hooking, will help keep smaller fish from grabbing ahold of them and tearing the cricket apart. Sunfish are notorius "nippers" ... and will "nip" a bug, tearing it apart, before engulfing it ... especially the smaller ones. Getting the bait down to the larger fish, which are less intimidated by the bait (and more prone to sucking the whole thing in), is the best way to avoid getting your bait "stolen" or "shredded" by the "nippers". For the most part, with the exception of the spawn, larger Sunfish will be found much deeper than your average handsized ones. (at least, in lakes & reservoirs, they are) ......... cp :cool:
I always go through the rear first. Seems like it works better if the head is near the hook point.
I agree. Shove it in it's ars and pull it out its throat...ha works for me.......Quote:
Originally Posted by mperry
Originally Posted by mperry
I always go through the rear first. Seems like it works better if the head is near the hook point.
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YUP
When u say throuh the rear, does the hook point come out at the head and "show"?
JohnS
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by JOHNS
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
bottom or top of what ? the cricket ??Quote:
Originally Posted by JOHNS
(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
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 ;) )Quote:
Originally Posted by JOHNS
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
OOOPPPPSSSSS guess who wasnt payin attention
I went out to the pond and experimented. I hooked the cricket in two different ways. One way bringing the hook down behind the head and then back up through the body. The other way was reversed. Going down through the body and back up behind the head.
Both ways caught fish at about the same rate. I found no difference in the two. What this tells me is that how you hook a cricket is just a personal preference. The fish involved in my test didn't really care how it was hooked. They just wanted to eat.
stick it up the rear from the top of the cricket and up his back and let the collar cover the point of the hook. works everytime.
they make cricket hooks and you just slide it under the collar so the cricket stays alive
~sticko~