This may sound like a completely stupid title for an article, but hear me out. Many anglers take their hooks for granted as a part of their fishing. They assume that as long as they're using the popular bait, or the bait that has worked in the past, they will catch fish. While it may be true that fish can be caught with blatant disregard for something as simple as hooks, large and/or experienced fish cannot. If a fish is large, it got that way for a reason. Because the fish has been around awhile. And fish that have been around awhile have not only seen anglers offerings before, they have probably been caught and released before. Therefore they become more difficult to fool into biting.
If you've spent any time on the water you know this fact to be true. That larger fish have not only been around longer, but have also become wiser. This is especially true in small rivers, where fish don't have hundreds of square miles to swim free in, such as is found in lakes.
So how do we go about enticing these larger fish to bite our offering? The best way that I've ever seen is by employing a set of gang hooks. What are gang hooks? They are simply two small hooks tied in tandem. And when I say small hooks, I mean small hooks. I personally use size 10 hooks. But with a set of size 10 gang hooks tied on four-pound test monofilament, I've caught trout and small mouth bass in the five to six pound class. And why do I catch fish this big with hooks so small? Because the fish don't realize there are hooks in the bait.
You see, gang hooks are the best way to present bait naturally. When your bait is in the water it looks completely natural. Your bait looks exactly like it does normally. For example, a worm hooked on size 10 gang hooks looks exactly the same as a worm without any hooks in it at all. Needless to say, this is a huge advantage to the angler.
The above reasons are why this article is titled "bait doesn't catch fish, hooks do", because while bait might help catch the attention of the fish, the hooks are what actually catches said fish. Start using gang hooks and you will begin catching more fish, It's as simple as that.
NAME: Trevor Kugler EMAIL: tkugler@jrwfishing.com URL: http://www.jrwfishing.com
