Stinger Hooks

[Bonefish]

If I spend a lot of time getting a fish to take my lure, I like the best possible odds to hook and bring that fish into the boat. Some of the ways to increase your odds are to use an adequate number and size of hook for the lure and fish your are fishing, keep your hooks sharp and tuned for hooking power, and to add a stinger hook whenever possible to increase hooking odds for short-striking fish. The following procedure may be used to place a stinger hook on most plastic lures.

1. Obtain a large threading needle and cut a notch one side of the eye.

2. Tie a piece of braided line to the stinger hook and then measure the leader to the main lure hook and tie a loop on the braided leader.

3. Place the braided loop in the needle eye.

4. Thread the needle through the plastic lure from tail to lure hook and pull the loop out and over the lure hook.

5. Run a separate piece of line through the braided loop and then around the lure hook and tie it off to prevent the loop from slipping off the lure hook.

I am sensing that many of you guys are preparing for the spring season; however, I know some of you have never stopped, and for you it is just a continuation of what you love best. Best fishing this new year.

[DJD]

Never been big on stinger hooks on my soft plastics since it's one of the best hookup ratios I have when bassfishing. Now buzzbaits and spinnerbaits are a different matter for me. I'll use trailer hooks to a fault when chunkin' those baits. To each his own I guess....

[Moose1am]

There is more than one kind of stinger hook. I read this post and at first had it in my mind that you were adding a stinger hook to a crank bait. It was not until I read about half the post that I realized what you were doing.

I guess I was thinking to myself "I need to learn how to attach a stinger hook to the back hook on my crank baits".

I saw in the Herter's Professional Guide book many years ago where it recommended adding a small fly or a small jig to the back hook of a crank bait. I guess I could use some small diameter but stiff Fluorocarbon line to tie the jig to the back hook. Or I could simply take the back hook of a crank bait and then tie the jig to the eyelet were the hook use to be.

I don't really know how long of a leader to use. 6" to maybe 18" or somewhere in that range. I have not tried this before but I'll bet that it's a deadly method when the fish are suspended in the summer months.

The fish see the crank bait coming or hear it and then after the crank bait goes past they see the smaller bait following. That is what they say triggers the actual strike.

I am going to give it a try this summer if all goes as planned. I still need a trolling plate on my motor's lower unit so that I can go slower. I only have a 35 hp motor but it still goes too fast for slow trolling crank baits behind the boat. I could use a parachute drift sock behind the boat but I don't have a buoy or a quick release and it would be difficult to release this device while trying to steer the boat, stop the boat, grab the rod out of the rod holder and then fight the fish all by myself. I normally fish by myself as my boat is so small in size and I don't have that much room for another guy and his gear. My gear takes up the whole boat almost. But when trolling cranks out the back of the boat it would help to have a fishing partner at times. Right now I have two rod holders, one on each side of the boat behind the bench seat. But I can only really effectively use the one on the drivers side right now. I have caught some small bass and three crappie last summer using just a crank bait.

I went to Patoka Lake last year and noticed some guys fishing in this one spot on the lake. One of the three guys sitting in this boat wore a bright orange watch cap which I could clearly see while driving down the road along the side of the lake. So when I reached the ramp and noticed these guys recovering their boat I spoke with them and found out that they had caught some nice crappie. So I had an idea of the general area where they were fishing. I could not sit directly over the same brush pile they were on but I knew the general area where they had been fishing last. So I set up the boat to troll crank baits and I fished this area. It only took me about 10 minutes to catch my first crappie. I was hooked on this method after that. It works sometimes when the fish are suspended about 10 ft to 12 ft below the surface and all schooled up. And sometimes it will work when they are suspended over the top of a submerged tree in deeper water. But they have to be about 12ft below the surface in any case unless you can get the crank baits to go deeper. That's something I need to work on.

There is a book for sale at Gander Mountain and other stores that's called "Precision Trolling". It list the speeds, length of line and depths of various types of baits when using different types and diameter's of fishing lines.

If you get into trolling for any species of fish this book may come in handy. Or you can experiment and develop your own tables for your specific boat.

Just remember that GPS units are not very accurate at slow speeds. Unless you are going over 10 mph the speed reading may not be very accurate. That's what I have been told.

Having a paddle wheel type speed meter on the back of the boat may give you better speed readings. But remember that this speed is not speed over the land but instead speed that could include the currents too. Relative speed or Indicated speed includes the speed of any current.

If your boat is sitting at anchor and there is a 2 knot current heading North to South along the surface of the lake then your speed meter will register a speed of 2 knots even though your boat is at anchor and not moving. So you will have to take this into consideration when you are moving the boat. The fish may not bite if the crank bait is moving too fast relative to the fish's position. Most fish will be hiding behind a current break on structure as they won't always be out in the main current.

I noticed on my first attempt to catch crappie while trolling that I was catching them when I motored INTO THE WIND and was not catching them as I motored with the wind. I was going way too fast with the wind. But when going against a 10 to 15 mph wind my boat's speed over land was much slower and the fish had time to see and take the baits.

Also the fish like to face into the current. The surface winds help to setup surface current in the lake, especially when there is a long stretch of water and open spaces. This day the winds were coming out of the South and West and when I went into the wind and parallel with the shoreline I caught a fish in this one spot almost every pass. I later learned that there was an old road bed that ran East to West just South from the Shoreline. I was fishing in the Lick Fork Area of Patoka Lake and near the South End. If you launch from the South Lick Fork Launch Ramp you just head East and fish that Eastern Bay's North Shoreline. The maps may show this old roadbed. It's out quite a way from the Northern Shoreline of the Eastern Bay. This is North of the Highway and East of the Bridge that goes over the old river channel. You may have to search for the brush piles or submerged trees in this area as they are isolated and it's not really trick like in some of the other areas of Patoka lake where there is a submerged tree every ten feet.

I plan on trying to add the trailer jig of even a small trout streamer fly to the back of one of my crank baits to see if it works.

I'll report back if I have success using this method

As for using a trailer hook on a worm. Are you using a weedless hook for that? I like rigging my worms Texas style so that they are weedless and I can pull them though grass and brush without hanging up. But when I feel that tap tap tap I set the hook as hard as I can an multiple times. At least twice to make sure that the hook gets into the bass's mouth good and hard. If I loose the fish I want to loose it right away not after I play it for ten minutes and then have it get off at the side of the boat. My heart can't that type of disappointment anymore.

[Bonefish]

Hey, Moose, its good to hear from you again. Thanks for the post. The stinger hook does't have to be a treble hook. You can use whatever hook you feel confidence that will do the job, including a weedless hook. I use a stinger hook when bass are fighting the bait and not really taking it. Bass sometimes like to stun their prey before swallowing. It seems Ky's do that a lot when feeding on shad. It is just another option to keep in mind.

I have fished Herrington a lot through the years for hybrids and whites, and it is then you can catch a lot of fish with a crankbait with a trailer on the back. The trailer can be a fly or another small bait placed anywhere from 18" to 24" behind the crankbait. I have caught two at a time this way.

I too plan to do more crappie fishing this year so I have been reading a lot this winter on the subject. I will take Dave Stewart's advice and use a guide this spring to learn more about this type of fishing. As far as trolling, I like to wind troll with wind socks so it slows the boat down. You can use more than one if needed depending upon the wind conditions and size of boat used. They make it nice in the fact you don't have to use the trolling motor very much except for direction. When wind trolling I only use two poles just to keep the confusion to a minimum. Seems to work for me. I love wind drifting, but it is a challenge to keep the boat speed just right and also keep your lure/bait at the right level.

[RoadToad]

On the subject of stinger hooks, I saw KVD doing a segment on spinner baits last year, and he said he almost always used a stinger hook (maybe he called it a trailer hook) on them, but I didn't catch how he attached them. How do you rig those? It almost looked like all he did was pass the point of the spinner bait hook through the eye of another big hook and fish it that way, but it seems there must be more to it than that.

[C-Marshall]

bump

[DJD]

I like to use the pack of trailer hooks that come with the small piece of tubing (surgical type) just cut a small piece to push onto the hook past the barb once the trailer hook has been put on first. It's the trailer hook keeper so to speak.
If I'm fishing in water with more weeds and stickups I like to cut that small piece of tubing, slip it over the eye of the trailer hook and then push the main lure hook point through both the tubing and the eye of the trailer hook at the same time. This will let the trailer hook ride straight and almost on an even keel with the main hook, kinda stays put. The first method allows the hook to slide and move which gets hung up quicker.

[Moose1am]

I have one Min-Kota Drift Sock and I need another one to go on my boat to slow my boat down some more. As I said earlier I also need to get a harness with a buoy to let me disconnect the wind sock when I get a fish on. The buoy allows the wind sock to float at the top so that one can go back and pick it up later after landing the fish.

My only trouble is that the lake I fish is not that big and I run out of room to drift after just a few minutes.

Now on a larger lake like Patoka Lake out on the main part of the lake or on KY lake the wind socks and drifting works good.

When I use to fish KY lake for Largemouth Bass in the days before electric trolling motors we would motor upwinds of a point or stump field and cut the motor and let the wind drift the boat over the stump field or point. Then I would get the OARS out and row back up wind of the point and we would drift over that area again. I would do this several times and then go to a new spot and repeat the process. At 8 years old I got pretty good at figuring out where the wind would push our 14 ft aluminum rental boat. If I got it wrong I would have to row a longer distance. So I learned quickly to get the drift pattern down just by looking at the waves and the directions of the white caps. LOL I got tired of rowing that boat into the wind for 200 yards at a time.

But the drifting really worked and Dad and I caught our fair share of Largemouth Bass this way. I was really happy in 1978 when I got my first bass boat and put an Motor Guide Electric Trolling motor on the bow. I didn't have to row the boat anymore. Man that was like dying and going to heaven.. But we didn't seem to catch as many fish as we did before by drifting over the fishing spots. Maybe it was the noise of the propeller in the water or maybe the fish just were not there anymore. Fishing pressure was slight compared to these days on KY lake. Back in the 1960's and late 1950's the lake still had a lot of wood on the points and there were more fish I think.

Thanks for the tip on using the different types of trailer hooks. I am looking forward to giving the trailer hooks a try this coming summer.

\

Hey, Moose, its good to hear from you again. Thanks for the post. The stinger hook doesn't have to be a treble hook. You can use whatever hook you feel confidence that will do the job, including a weedless hook. I use a stinger hook when bass are fighting the bait and not really taking it. Bass sometimes like to stun their prey before swallowing. It seems Ky's do that a lot when feeding on shad. It is just another option to keep in mind.

I have fished Herrington a lot through the years for hybrids and whites, and it is then you can catch a lot of fish with a crank bait with a trailer on the back. The trailer can be a fly or another small bait placed anywhere from 18" to 24" behind the crank bait. I have caught two at a time this way.

I too plan to do more crappie fishing this year so I have been reading a lot this winter on the subject. I will take Dave Stewart's advice and use a guide this spring to learn more about this type of fishing. As far as trolling, I like to wind troll with wind socks so it slows the boat down. You can use more than one if needed depending upon the wind conditions and size of boat used. They make it nice in the fact you don't have to use the trolling motor very much except for direction. When wind trolling I only use two poles just to keep the confusion to a minimum. Seems to work for me. I love wind drifting, but it is a challenge to keep the boat speed just right and also keep your lure/bait at the right level.

[Bonefish]

I like to use the pack of trailer hooks that come with the small piece of tubing (surgical type) just cut a small piece to push onto the hook past the barb once the trailer hook has been put on first. It's the trailer hook keeper so to speak.
If I'm fishing in water with more weeds and stickups I like to cut that small piece of tubing, slip it over the eye of the trailer hook and then push the main lure hook point through both the tubing and the eye of the trailer hook at the same time. This will let the trailer hook ride straight and almost on an even keel with the main hook, kinda stays put. The first method allows the hook to slide and move which gets hung up quicker.

DJD, that way of rigging is a good idea. I will try that.

[Bonefish]

I forgot to mention why I brought this subject up in the first place. I was reading about swimbaits, and it was suggested to place a stinger hook in the tail of the soft plastic swimbaits. By putting a tail hook in these baits, it would be an added advantage for short-striking fish.

[Bonefish]

Boy, the more I read about these swimbaits, the more these baits intrigue my curiosity. They are facinating from the point that some of these are so live like and very costly. I saw one that was $200. Now that's a bait you should hang on your wall and say you caught it. After looking at these, I think one could use some of the cheaper plastics and they would work just as well as the plastic-live-like lures.