losing SMB wacky rig style – problem solved….

Last week I posted regarding all the missed fish I had fishing SMB using wacky rigs and I want to report back. I made the following suggestions folks on IDO came up with. The results were amazing and resulted in no more unbuttoned fish.

1. 3/0 hook (missed a few on a 2/0 before finally changing)
2. Straght 10 lb/ fluor (instead of braid with fluor. leader)
3. 3/0 True turn work hook (instead of 2/0 finesse hook)
4. Inserted hook directly through worm (instead of a ring)
5. Solid hook set (instead of a loading rod)

As someone mentioned last week, we did catch some SMB on the North end of Mille Lacs with nasty white sores on them. The one in the picture is on top (rooting for crayfish??) but we caught another with one near its tail. Any idea what this could be??

Good news for you on your changes. Bad news for the smallies. Glad to hear you figured it out. That one Smallie looks nasty.

Way to go!
Its great to see a fisherman make adjustments and have success!
I would email that photo to the DNR…that looks like a cancerous sarcoma…not good

Congrat’s on figuring out the problem and solving it.

Since you were on Mille Lacs with Zebra Mussels, could they be what caused the Sore, cutting themselves on Zeb’s?

It could be zebs but we also caught some that had sores near its tail?? Another thing was we only noticed fish with these sores in the North end between Myr Mar and Knox point…Have not seen fish with these sores along the West side or SE end.

I did forward the picture to the MN DNR.

I agree, nice job making the adjustments to get some nice fish into the boat.
The wounded fish, I also agree, send the DNR a copy of it, that does not look like rooting for craws, that usually is a smaller round circle behind the head, not open exposed tissues. Sept and Oct should be great up there.
Jack

As I reported last week there are fish with those sores on the east side as far south as the casino access, caught many last weekend. Nasty

Thx, be sure to post the response from the DNR…very curious. Hopefully nothing that threatens the long term health of the smallie population on ML.

“3/0 True turn work hook (instead of 2/0 finesse hook)”

Since this original post, I am heading to Cabelas tomorrow to do some shopping. Before I buy had a few follow up questions to original post:

1) Tru Turn hooks – are they quite big/visible to the bass when wacky rig fishing? They seem big, but if red, do fish think they’re blood trail?

2) Can you set the hook hard with Tru Turn hooks, or do you “sweep” hook set?

3) I’ve had problems with smaller, traditional wacky hooks getting embedded in the fish’s stomach – do the Tru Trun hooks help prevent that?

4) Can you rig plastic worms weedless Texas style with Tru Turn hooks?

I used the turn style hooks years ago when texas rigging and I thought I missed a few because of it, so I stopped using them, but they may be better hooks now. As far as the red hooks go… somepeople say the red does appear as blood on or near the bait, I don’t know for sure, I use red and standard color hooks and I can’t tell a difference. When the reds first came out, I was convinced they were better than the standard color, but now it seems about the same to me. Good Luck!!