Catching Giant Bass — The right hook for the job


Everyone enjoys bragging about their giant bass catches. For most of us, catching giant bass is a result of being "lucky" during the course of a day's fishing.

To the truly knowledgeable anglers, catching giants is no accident. I've caught my share of big bass — even in tournaments, but lately I've been concentrating on trying to catch giant bass even more.

I think the reason many people don't land more big bass is because they are fishing too light of tackle. I know, I know, lots of big bass are caught on light tackle. But since I've really honed in on fishing big, my landing ratio has gone up. Maybe I'm not hooking as many as some of the light tackle guys, but I don't believe it. Important however, the number coming in the boat has gone way up!

This was a 8.75 pound bass from Falcon Lake in April 2012.
I got it on a 10-inch Power Worm.

When I'm fishing an area or lake where I think my chances of getting a big one are highly probable, I use 25-pound Flourocarbon line (Seaguar Invizx), 10- to 12-inch Berkley Power Worms (Blue Fleck), half-ounce Tungsten weights (or more if it's windy), and a 7/0 Owner hook.

Lately, I have become convinced the 7/0 Owner hook has made a huge difference. It looks like a normal offset worm hook but it is over sized (not extra wide gap), just an over-sized worm hook. It has a really long shank.

Notice how the 7/0 hook would be embedded near the middle
of the worm? It helps my hook-up percentage.

When the bass picks up the worm, she usually grabs it in the middle at first and then sucks it in. The long-shank hook's barb is right where she grabs it.

I've caught numerous 6- to 10- (well almost 10) pound bass from Lake Austin to Falcon Lake to Lake Amistad in the last year using this setup.

There is an Owner 11/0 hook in the same style that should be used with 12-inch or larger worms.

I hope this helps your hook-up percentage too.


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