assist hooks on poppers

[etan]

Is anyone replacing trebles with assist hooks? If so what have the results been?

[JerseyBrian]

I've seen Sami from APS using assist hooks on his poppers for GT fishing.

[Bret]

When Mcgolfer and I were in CR fishing for sails with poppers, we switched to assist hooks, because the trebles would not hook the bill properly.. however, the sails quit biting after the change out, so we never got to test our theory
thoroughly.. I see no reason not to.. esp, if you want to release what you are catching..

[Uncle Russ]

One of the other questions I have seen addressed on one board or another is whether you want to use long or short cords when installing them on poppers.

Russ

[BretABaker]

i'm going to try this in NC at the end of the month. I'll change out the trebles on at least one popper. In general I hate using and storing trebles, so if it works that'll be great.

[gman]

I did when fishing for billfish. if i were fishing for tuna I would only change out the back for a single as I like trebels on the front

[TOO]

I used a "Bazztex Special" popper with single hooks in front and back on the TFF Quatro Tuna trip. It was a wide open bite, had YFT all over the lights and had blowups on 80% of my casts. I hooked and landed one YF, had about 8 short hook ups before the hooks pulled or the lure pulled out of the mouth.
Don't know if it was my technique on the blowups on the popper, the single hooks, or something else. I know at the end of night the popper was marked up, but it was hard to actually hook up and fight a tuna. It was extremely frustrating yet a whole lot of fun to have that many blowups. Kind of a ying/yang thing. I kind of figure some of it was due to the singles not in proper position in the mouth to hook up, but that is just a guess.
We were on a party boat, so it isn't considered real hard core, I guess.

[gman]

Originally Posted by TOO

I used a "Bazztex Special" popper with single hooks in front and back on the TFF Quatro Tuna trip. It was a wide open bite, had YFT all over the lights and had blowups on 80% of my casts. I hooked and landed one YF, had about 8 short hook ups before the hooks pulled or the lure pulled out of the mouth.
Don't know if it was my technique on the blowups on the popper, the single hooks, or something else. I know at the end of night the popper was marked up, but it was hard to actually hook up and fight a tuna. It was extremely frustrating yet a whole lot of fun to have that many blowups. Kind of a ying/yang thing. I kind of figure some of it was due to the singles not in proper position in the mouth to hook up, but that is just a guess.
We were on a party boat, so it isn't considered real hard core, I guess.

Willie thanks for the email ... I found that when using singles you need to give it a second before setting the hook incase the single may be outside the mouth with trebels you have a better shot at a solid hook-set immediately because there is 3 hooks.

I let the Marlin suck it in and then hit it, it allowed for a solid hookup although I popped most of them off later on in the fight. I would rather use trebels on tuna

[Uncle Russ]

TOO: Were your single hooks attached directly using split rings or were they assist hooks? I'm thinking the former. It seems to me that the assist hooks, if they were attached to the front ring, in the same manner as on jigs, would cling to the body of the lure and get inhaled with it, whereas the directly attached hooks would tend to do as you said-hang out and avoid hooking up.

Russ

[tbuckshot]

I have been thinking about replacing the stock single hooks with the double hooks, thus eliminating the need for a split ring. How does that sound? Front ones pointing down, rear pointing up.