How do fish get away?

[Paul Arden]

Yep that’s probably it. It might be worth tryng tying the popper on a tube with the hook dangling free.

I’m sure that one of the problems is the buoyancy of the popper itself. If I tie them very buoyant I miss them all.

Cheers, Paul

[Paul Arden]

I’ve also considered Circle hooks, but haven’t tied any yet. Could be tied either as part of the popper or behind a separate tube head. Has anyone experience with either of these approaches? There is no set with a circle hook as I understand it?

Cheers, Paul

[Bendix]

Hi Paul

When I go fly fishing for Pike (I don’t do it all that often) I will often use a tube fly, where I have an Owner S-61 size 3/0 hanging loose behind the fly, in a small loop created with the wire. The hook is then “dangling” freely.

With this method, I get a very good hook set in perhaps 90% of the bites I get. So this method might work well for Snakehead.

But I also have lots of experience in my Salmon and Seatrout fishing, where the fish suddenly “pop off” during the fight, for no apparent reason... I have no explanation for this, other than sometimes you simply have bad luck...

/Bendix

[Paul Arden]

Yep this is something that I have in mind Bendix. Although I’m not sure yet how to wire it together and it will need some experiments!

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Paul,

Have you tried a pencil popper? The longer/ thinner body exposes the hook much better. If you cup the face and adjust the float attitude correctly you can get 'em to make as much commotion as the short/squat ones.

They tend to cast better too.

I have set these bodies up with a tube. I'm pretty sure I posted something about my tube popper here on SL somewhere in the past.

I don't use short bodies for any reason these days.

[Paul Arden]

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3018&hilit=Pencil+ ... d183a288dd

No but I will Gary. Do you make the popper foam? It should be relatively easy to fit a hood for more disturbance if necessary.

[Bendix]

Hi again Paul

I was thinking about this last night again, and I came to remember something from my Carp fishing days, using conventional gear.

Back then, I would use a hair rig with a boilie, and the idea behind it was, that when the Carp sucked up the boilie and hook and swam away, the line would come tight to the heavy lead, causing the hook to be pulled out of the Carps mouth. The hook would then “turn” in the Carps mouth, and automatically set in the Carps bottom lip, and the Carp was hooked, and then all hell would break loose...

When I tied these hook-rigs, I would test them by hanging them from my finger, and then pull on the line with my other hand. If the hook then caught a hold on my finger, the rig worked. But if it didn’t catch my finger, but instead slide off, the rig would have to be remade.

I thought about this, because you mentioned that the Snakehead would sometimes swim off with your fly, without getting hooked.

And maybe when you tie a Snakehead leader with a loose hanging hook and a tube fly, then I thought that this old Carp fishing trick could maybe be copied somehow. It may be worth experimenting with this, and maybe do a “finger test” with your leaders before you start fishing...

Anyway, it was just a thought I had last night...

/Bendix

[Paul Arden]

Thanks Bendix, can you make a quick sketch please?

Cheers, Paul

[Bendix]

Hi again

The specific knot used for the hair rig for Carp, won’t work, I think. It was more the finger testing idea I thought you could use.

But done in the way you see in this picture, the hook catches my finger every time I pull on the wire, both fast and slow pulls.

The hook is the same Owner S-61 size 3/0 I mentioned earlier, and the wire in this case is a 25 pound plastic coated wire from Vision. This wire is pretty stiff, and doubled over and then twisted together.

I hope you can see it alright in this photo.

I have caught many Pike on this rig, when used behind a tube fly, where the hook hangs between a lot of flash.

/Bendix

[Bendix]

Out of interest, I just tried to make a crude drawing of the hair rig knot I used to use.

The knot is called the “Not a Knot”, and is done by letting the tag end lay backwards along the hook shank. Then the line is put through the eye of the hook, and then wound backwards over the hook shank and tag end about 5-8 times, and is then put back through the hook eye. The tag end is what makes the hair in the hair rig, but this can easily be trimmed of quite close to the knot.

For Carp fishing I would use a soft braided line for this, but it can be done with wire. I have often made this knot with wire on treble hooks, for using dead baitfish for Pike.

But like I said in my previous post, I don’t think the Not a Knot is the way to go. I think the solution shown in my previous post will work a lot better in regards to what you’re trying to achieve.

Hope the drawing makes sense.

/Bendix

/Bendix