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How to bait a hook, commercial style (herring)

148K views 71 replies 56 participants last post by  metal_jaw 
#1 · (Edited)
This tutorial is on indefinite hold...
 
#8 ·
Rick & Maxcat... With a cable hook there is no bend. On a very large bait you don't want a bend anyways. These will run pretty straight, with a little bit of wobble. So the dodger / flasher will cause it to whip back & forth a little more, which is perfect. With a very large crowbar, if a bait is behind a flasher / dodger, then no bend at all. If it's alone without a flasher, then a slight bend on the large baits, with more bend on the smaller baits.

Basically, when a bait is behind a flasher, the flasher is providing most of the action so you want a "straight" bait, vs without a flasher, when you have to give the bait a little roll or wobble.

Joe - my observation has been that with the tail in place (whether on a herring or an anchovy), and if you use a straight hook, the bait tends to spin on it's axis, which is very unnatural (and causes leader twist). So on a small anchovy, using a curved (bent) hook makes it roll instead. On these split tail herring, removing the tail takes out this spin, and causes just a slight wobble. Sort of like removing the rudder from a boat?

Ed...dory still for sale; it's right whare I left it :grin:
 
#9 ·
Mark great post have been fishing all my life and have some Commerical people in background but have never seen them hook up a fish like this, have found parts that your use in old tackle boxes never new how to use them and always seen them in big tackle stores, will definatly try some this year and really appiciate the time it took to post....Ray :dance: :dance:
 
#11 ·
So as my mind runs amok, I'm thinking I might try this with some of those little buck shad I caught this week and see if the hali's like this method as well.

Thanks once again, Mark, for sharin' what you know. Great pics too, by the way. Was Brenna handling the camera work? :flowered:

Skein
 
#13 ·
Excellent post!! :cheers:

I have seen those cable hooks at Englunds and thought, ..... :whazzup: :shrug: :whazzup: :shrug: :whazzup: :shrug: :whazzup: :shrug: .....then moved on still not knowing how they are to be used. :rolleyes:

Now I know. :bowdown:
 
#17 ·
Oh, that's good stuff, but it would never outfish an FBR. Sorry, inside joke.

Seriously guys, cut and paste this post and save it. This is how all commercial fishermen fish bait and it works. If an RSK or plug cut was better, wouldn't they use it? It's SO much easier.

The best part about bait on a crowbar is it will fish for a LONG time.

Mark, you want to post one showing how to stick a chovie? Another way to do it is instead of using a bait snap (which I have NEVER done, GREAT TIP) you use a pin and a small length of copper wire. They also have these at Englunds. You just run the pin through the bait's head through the back hook and secure it in place with the light copper wire around his head. That is what the second hole is for on the crowbars and flat bars.

Good stuff.
 
#18 ·
Mark, You did an excellent job illustrating this and I learned a lot - thanks for doing that. I would like to see you do one on anchovies (even crusty ones will do). The last time I tried the anchovies/crow bar thing - I was a teenager working on my high school basketball coach's commercial salmon boat in Monterey Bay. That was a few years ago - 31 to be exact. Bob
 
#21 ·
Thanks you guys for the kind words...

Kurt, yep yep yep! Like I said, I'll do a piece later on anchovies & crowbars. Don't want to get TOO far into it without the pictures, but since you brought it up.... we always use pins & rubberbands; the copper wire is tres obsolete, because they take so much longer to tie & untie. On occasion we'd put pin/rubberband on a herring, so we could snap it on, if we were using mostly junk and didn't want that big Sonny Maahs snap hanging on a spoon. Here's an odd thing: on a herring the pin goes in front of the eyes (otherwise the mouth won't stay shut); on an anchovy, it goes behind the eyes.

I should acknowledge my wife for taking the photos, all the while grimacing at what I was doing to that poor little herring.

p.s. Walt... "I would try an FBR at RBH though"

OK I get the FBR jokes, but my poor brain doesn't know what RBH is :shrug: :redface:
 
#25 ·
Just to verify the quality of the snaps, I was trolling off Tillamook a couple of years ago in the fall, lots of big fish in the 30-50 pound range were hanging right off the beach. I solidly hooked 12 fish that day and 9 of them came off due to snap failure (duolocks and butterfly). One of the veteran trollers helped me out by telling me about the "Fort Bragg" snap as he called it. Never had a snap fail since. Good design, good quality.
 
#26 ·
Very nice, Mark. Can you ask Jennie if she will add this to the 'Tips' area or otherwise permanent storage? This stuff needs to be saved so we can all refer to it.

How many boats run baited crowbars vs. just straight hardware?

Should I not put a roll in 2 hook, RSK herring rigs when I run them behind a flasher?

This has been a very effective technique.
 
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