If you vertical jig, you need to read this…

This is a copy of the 11 Jan. 2015 fishing column I wrote for the Killeen Daily Herald about a very effective addition to a standard vertical jigging setup called an “assist hook”…

This white bass was hooked solely on the Gamakatsu G-Stinger assist hook affixed to the line tie of this 3/4 oz. slab.  Were it not for the assist hook, this strike would most likely not have resulted in a landed fish.  The assist hook have definitely increased the strike-to-land ratio for me and my clients.

 

It all started with a phone call from a local bass tournament fisherman-turned-manufacturer’s-representative. He invited me to lunch to show me the 2015 lineup of lures, terminal tackle and gear that he was dealing in.

As we “talked fishing” and I thumbed through the various catalogs, something immediately caught my eye as both unique and practical — not just another “better mousetrap,” as so many things tend to be these days.

That something was an “assist hook” sized appropriately for freshwater use, called the Gamakatsu G-Stinger. An assist hook consists of a single hook to which a short loop of strong, braided line is affixed, finished off with either a somewhat flexible plastisol coating or a short length of heat-shrink tubing over the knot that joins the short loop of line to the hook.

The assist hook is designed to be affixed to the line tie on the end of a vertical jigging spoon to “assist” in hooking more fish than the treble hook affixed to the opposite end of the jigging spoon would on its own.

I was like a kid waiting for Christmas as I anticipated the arrival of my first packets of these assist hooks by mail. I opted for the size 4s to experiment with. I even designed an “experiment” to fairly evaluate the effectiveness of the assist hooks.

I began with four slabs. Two weighed three-quarters of an ounce and two weighed three-eighths of an ounce. On the two that weighed three-quarters, I took the treble hook off of one and affixed an assist hook to the line tie, giving that lure a total of one hook point to catch into a fish’s mouth. On the other, I left the treble hook in place and added the assist hook, giving that lure a total of four hook points to catch into a fish’s mouth. I altered the set of two 3/8-ounce baits in the same manner.

I headed out on Stillhouse Hollow in pursuit of white bass, equipped with four rods equipped with just these four altered lures. I found active white bass feeding under gulls and began jigging with these modified baits. I used the 3/4-ounce bait with the treble hook and assist hook affixed to it first. My aim was to fish until I caught five fish on each lure and compare my results. On this first lure, I caught five fish on six strikes quickly, with three of them hooked by the treble, one of them hooked by the assist hook only, and one of them hooked by both the treble and the assist hook.

I then experimented with the 3/4-ounce lure with only the assist hook affixed to it. Although I caught five fish, I missed a number of strikes and so it took nearly twice as long to catch this “set” of five fish. Next, I used the 3/8-ounce lure with both hooks attached and again put five fish in the boat in short order. This time, three of the fish were hooked with both hooks, and the other two were hooked on the treble hook only. Finally, I experimented with the 3/8-ounce bait with only the assist hook affixed to it. Again, more missed strikes, although it took less time to land five fish on this bait than on the 3/4-ounce bait with only the assist hook attached.

Through this experiment, the number of incidents where the assist hook was firmly set into the fish was convincing to me. Since that time in mid-December, I have added an assist hook to all of my rods rigged with a slab, and as a result, even as the water has cooled and the fish have become more lethargic, my clients have enjoyed enhanced success, and in many cases have landed fish that were hooked with the assist hook only. Even those novice anglers who do not yet set the hook well after recognizing a strike have seen enhanced results.

On the day after Christmas, I fished with Harker Heights High School swim team member Alex Gibbs. He was the first client aboard to use the assist hooks after I’d convinced myself they were worth it. He came aboard a novice angler with only a few prior fishing trips under his belt, and none involving catching white bass nor using a vertical jigging technique.

Over our four hours on the water, he boated 51 fish. That, in itself, is not uncommon. However, given the tough, nearly flat calm conditions, and the fact that the fish were striking very tentatively, he far exceeded an average performance under those conditions.

This simple accessory has earned a permanent place in my tackle bag. With the bulk of the winter still ahead of us, and with winter fishing demanding a slow, vertical presentation for sluggish fish, now is a great time to experiment with this new product. For you tinkerers and do-it-yourselfers, you’ll see this rigging is simple and that modifications to hook size and style and to loop strength and length are easily done.

Assist hooks literally allow the angler to place “more hooks in the water” and more fish in the boat.

 

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