It's A
Simple Modification
But can
it make a difference?
Craig Sandell © 2010
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There seems to have emerged some
additional interest in the practice of heat shrinking the tail hook
on Musky lures. Supposedly, this will position the hook for a higher
hookup percentage but there are no facts
to support the "marketing hype". What we do know is that Musky will
seek to attack their prey in mid-body. A mid-body attack makes a
'fixed position' tail hook less likely to be part of a 'hook-up'. This article gives you a step by
step to try it for yourself. |
The Top Raider and the Rumbler use a neat modification to the
tail hook. It is a little trick borrowed from other lure manufacturers and
many of the older Musky anglers. I thought that you might find this simple
lure modification of some interest.
The Problem
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Whenever
you throw a lure such as a bucktail, spinner or almost any surface lure, the
hook at the tail end of the lure is NOT in the position for
optimum hooking. If you look at the lure shown here, you can see that the tail
hook is at a 90 degree angle to the ‘retrieve plane‘ of the lure.
Regardless of how fast you retrieve your lure, the tail hook will never be
in-line with the body of the lure. |
| The Solution By adding a piece of heat shrink tubing over
the split ring and the shaft end of the lure, to which the split ring is
attached, the tail hook will be placed in an in-line position.
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This
is a simple procedure but you will need some tools. The split ring pliers and
side cutters shown at the left are probably in your tool kit already.
You will have to buy some heat shrink tubing.
You can get it at your local hardware store or Radio Shack. You are looking
for ¼ diameter tubing. Unfortunately, it is usually packaged with tubing of
other sizes but it is cheap and having some different sizes may spark an idea
or two. |
Preparing The Hook
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Get your treble hook and
cut a length of heat shrink tubing that is the length of the shaft
of the hook. Make sure that the tubing DOES NOT
cover the eye of the treble hook. |
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Slip the heat shrink
tubing over the treble hook shaft as shown in the illustration at
the left. |
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You can now install the
split ring onto the hook. You now have the basic assembly for the
modification to any lure in your tackle box. |
| For
this procedure, you will need one additional piece of equipment...a heat gun.
Once again, your local hardware store or Radio Shack will usually have what
you need. I would NOT recommend that you try a hair dryer. It
doesn't get hot enough to completely shrink the tubing. |
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Install
the hook, tubing and split ring assembly onto the lure you plan to modify.
Once installed, you will have to coax the heat shrink tubing up from the
treble hook shaft and over the split ring and on to the 'through wire' or
screw eye of the lure you are modifying. Once that is done, simply use your heat gun on
the heat shrink tubing to shrink it snugly over the entire assembly as shown
on the Tally Wacker. |
CAUTION:
If you are doing this on a lure dressed with hair or feathers, make sure
that the dressing is NOT directly in the
flow of the hot air from the heat gun.
This will work for any lure where there is a
trailing hook except on tail
wagging surface lures like the Hawg Wobbler. Try it on your Bucktails, spinner
baits and almost any of your surface lures. If you don't like it, simply cut
the heat shrink tubing off.
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