Stinger Hooks

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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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.