How to hook up more often?

[Mr.Twister]

Did a little canoe flat line trolling in a small ADK reservoir yesterday. The Rainbows were hitting Lake clear wobblers w/ small bits of crawlers about a foot behind and small Christmas trees w/ crawlers behind also. They were very hard to hook even w/ trailer hooks. They would slash at it 3-4 times, half the time stripping the bait before moving on. Switching to treble hook trailers didn't make a difference in hook ups at all. These fish were masters of stealing worms. 

We did manage to boat 4 nice bows from 14" to 16" but if we could have hooked up on even half the bites we would have boated at least 15 or so.

Anyone have any advice for increasing hookups?

Thanks,

Mr.T

[Scientist]

Sounds like the gap on your hooks are too small. You are probably using a small “bait holder” style hook for the worms. Switch to an octopus style hook. On some lakes I fish, the trout behave the same way so for crawlers I actually use a worm harness for walleye, minus the spinner and beads. Have not had success with trebles because the trouts never opened their mouths wide enough to hit them.

[Mr.Twister]

Yeah we were using #6 eagle claw snells w/ red beads and gold spinners behind the christmas trees. I started out using plain baitholders w/ no beads or spinners w/ very little action. Once I switched to the beads and spinners the bites picked up a lot.

What would you recommed as a good distance between hooks?

Should I use the octopus hooks for trailers or both?

Thanks for the help.

Mr.T

[Scientist]

The distance between the hooks depends on how long the piece of crawler is going to be or if you are using garden worms. You never want the trailer hook to dangle at the end or have a loop of line between the hooks. A loop will cause the rig to spin and twist up your line even if you have a swivel on the line. The typical setup I use are two octopus style hooks about 3 inches apart from each other. The first hook is through the very tip of the worm and the other is at 1 inch from the other end. The reason I don’t hook it at one end and at the opposite end is they will shy away from the bait if they see the second hook; by placing the hook 1” further up the very end the hook is concealed and if the nipped at they will get hooked. I found that red or black nickel out produce the silver ones in the waters I fish. Tend to stick with silver ones for baitfish.

[caddis13]

thanks

[Mr.Twister]

Thanks for the reply and the info scientist !!!

I started using the octopus hooks the way you described and the hookups are coming more often now. Having the trailer hook in the correct position has helped a lot. About 90% of the browns and bows we are catching are hooked on the trailer.

My buddy caught a 22" football shaped bow out last time that weighed in at 5lbs. 6 oz a very nice fish caught on the trailer hook !!

Thanks again,

Mr.Twister

[Scientist]

You are welcome for the info!  I post a lot more fishing techniques on iceshanty because there is not a lot of info out there and basically techniques produce fish . The trout in the lake that you fish were accustomed to getting free meals because most anglers used the same setup as you did and were never caught. Now that you know the technique, fishing will become a bigger passion, when you start catching the “big ones.”  It has taken me many years of  “experimenting” to get consistent results especially with trolling for trout and they are lake specific. What works on one lake will not necessarily produce on another.  I don’t keep any trout less than 15 inches but before being able to consistently catch fish I would keep the stockers and some would only be 10 inches. The flesh would be yellow and taste like liver because of the feed at the hatchery, but a couple of months in the lake and their flesh would become a nice bright orange from the insects they fed on.  I just release the smaller ones to let them grow larger because the bigger ones are much more fun to catch and taste much better. 
Another really good technique for catching large trout is flat lining a 2-1/8 inch Krocodile spoon, color of spoon is lake specific, approximately 200 yds behind the boat. As a reference 200yds is almost an empty spinning spool, but the spoon will only be down 15 feet in the thermocline. The troll speed is determined by how the tip of the rod is behaving. If you look at the tip it should be a steady motion of slight pulls it almost looks like a strike while bait fishing but it is the wobble of the spoon and a fish on is a big pull back on the rod.  Just change the treble hook to a single swiash hook for easier release and it causes less damage to the fishes jaws.