Worm harnesses

With the rain and all I’ve taken the downtime to tie up some much needed worm rigs. Somehow I’ve accumulated a big bunch of #2 Eagle Claw Octopus hooks and have been using them. Just wondering what everybody’s thoughts are about them or what you’d recommend as a substitute. thanks- – jerr

Personally I use gamakatsu octopus for walleye. But I use eagle claw octopus when I troll for crappie and do hook a few walleye.

Jerry:

#2’s are standard fare for most worm harnesses. Jolly Roger Tackle uses #2 Gammakatsu’s standard on all their worm harnesses I know. I’ve gotten pretty particular over the years, and have lost more fish than I’d care to admit over what I believe to be poor hook choice on live bait rigs of all types.

Cat-claw type hooks (curved point) I’ve had the poorest hookup ratios with, next followed by offset hooks. The offset varieties (bent to the side) do as intended, and put the hook in the corner of the fish’s mouth, but only when you make contact. Unlike a jig for example, there’s no mass or weight to keep it from being easily expelled if the fish feels you. Of all the underwater footage I’ve seen of walleyes in particular, most fish at the moment of truth open-wide and lurch. A single small weightless hook has a pretty good chance of missing meat in that situation.

I don’t like to pay them too much line so they don’t take the hook deep. To do that, I feel more confident in “straight” hooks like a gammakatsu or VMC wide-gap. On those, I like to bend out the hook a touch for better hookups in the roof of the mouth. Especially with heavier sinkers acting like a counter-weight when a fish rolls, I’d prefer to have that hook there.

Much of this is matter of preference, but it’s where I’ve ended up over the years.

Joel

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I like to use the slow death hooks for single hook worm harnesses and have good luck with them on the eyes. If I start getting a lot of short bites I shorten the crawler. They also wrok with leeches.

Thanks guys. I’ll certainly put all this great info to good use. Much appreciate the effort–jerr

I have been using Tru Turn bait holder hooks, both #2’s and #4’s on my crawler rigs. My experience is that you can set the hook immediately or in many cases the fish are already hooked when they hit the crawler. I feel that this is the main reason I seldom if ever get a hook deep, rather most hooks are on the roof of the mouth, easy to remove. For me it sure seems to make a difference.

I pretty much stick to #4’s in a octopus style. Gsmakatsu are what I have been using but I bought a pack of eagle claw laser sharps to try out.