Weedless hooks promise to prevent the hook from catching on weeds in the water, but I tried them to determine for myself if they actually do or not. The results struggled under intense user err, but overall, the product itself seems very handy for a professional.
Do weedless hooks actually work? While they didn’t work for me initially, as a beginner angler, a more experienced angler would immediately have great success with them. After some practice, I got significantly better at it.
Weedless hooks can be difficult or easy to use, depending on your experience level, gear, and background of working with your equipment and handling it. The more familiar you are with your equipment, the easier it will be for you to use any of it.
Do Weedless Hooks Work?
With traditional soft plastic lures, the hook tends to get caught in the weeds. Unless you’re out to catch weeds, this will ruin your trip, as dragging clumps of weeds through the water tends to scare fish off. Weedless hooks supposedly tuck the hook up into the bait, preventing the hook from catching.
Whether or not they work comes down to yourself, what gear you have, what weedless hook you buy, and how you attach and handle the hook. If you don’t follow the instructions for your weedless hook and lure, you’ll end catching even more weeds than with a regular hook.
When I tried them at first, I had little to no luck. I sat down again and carefully hooked the lure together as the instructions said. This took me significantly longer, as I was being extremely careful, but it worked much better.
What Are Weedless Hooks?
A weedless hook, in its most basic form, is simply a hook with some kind of guard preventing debris from getting tangled in the hook. The guard is made of a light gauge wire, which keeps weeds away from the hook’s point.
Weedless hooks come in a few different forms, most famously the Weedless Wacky Worm Hook. This is the most standard weedless hook you can buy, as it uses a lightweight guard to prevent the hook from catching on things.
Many other forms of hooks come as weedless. In theory, just about any hook could be made weedless if you were to put the light wire on the tip of the hook. Another way to hide the hook from debris in the water is to tuck inside your bait, but that can be a more difficult task to master.
In this post, we’ll cover where you can find a weedless hook, how to successfully use weedless hooks, and some tips on how to hide the hook in your lure. All of these are great tools to make yourself a master angler.
Where Can You Find a Weedless Hook?
The first place I went to looking for a weedless hook was my local fishing store. They have a large selection of hooks, lures, and everything else fishing you may wish for. With the help of a nice older gentleman, I checked out with a selection of hooks that advertised themselves as hookless.
The other place I looked was our big brand stores in town, but they didn’t have much to offer. They have a very general fishing section, which certainly had several weedless hook options, but not as many as grandpa did. The hardware store also had some selection.
In the following section, we’ll get into the different styles of weedless hooks. Before that though, where can you purchase them, especially if you lack a local fishing store run by someone’s grandpa? The same place we all buy everything else – you can see them here on Amazon.
When I got home from purchasing my weedless hooks, I sat down to make some price comparisons. Amazon offers a much lower price to other places, but if you can afford it and have one, try to visit that local grandpa’s store.
What Kind of Weedless Hooks Are There?
We just went over the fact that I purchased a variety of weedless hooks to try and where the cheapest location is, but what kinds of weedless hooks do they make? After all, there are dozens of different kinds of hooks best suited for different tasks because of their shape.
As I discovered, not only are their weedless hooks, but many other kinds of hooks apply the same technique. For instance, I was shown a jig hook with a light wire cage on it. It was the same as a typical jig hook, but for the tiny wire run between the tip and the base.
If you’re sick of catching weeds instead of fish, but can’t stop using your favorite style hook, don’t worry anymore. Now, you can order just about any kind of hook you could imagine off Amazon. You can also custom order them or make your own, described in the following.
Nearly any hook could be made hookless. You’ll only need a little bit of work to create a weedless hook. You’ll first choose your hook you want to make weedless. Then, you’ll only need some light wire to twist on the base of the hook to be run to the point.
How to Use a Weedless Hook Successfully: Tips and Tricks from a Beginner’s Mistakes
As mentioned before, my first attempt with a weedless hook brought in half the debris in the river, or so it seemed as I was hauling to shore to recover my hook and lure. This was because I wasn’t used to using the hook at all, and it requires some practice to get used to.
Not only did I look at the packaging for my specific lures and hooks, I also pulled up Bass Pro’s website to get some help from them on which hooks to use and how to use them best. A lot of the information I learned is from here.
Weedless hooks can be difficult to get comfortable with, but many master anglers swear by them and their ability to save you from disturbing the debris and scaring fish. Of course, you can also use weedless lures. Some people swear these are much better than weedless hooks.
What About Weedless Lures?
Weedless lures are often used instead of weedless hooks. These essentially have the hook tucked up inside them, so the hook is protected from catching debris. The hook tucks up inside the bait and through it, so when the fish bite, the hook will pop out and catch.
Weedless lures can be tricky to get the hang of. I learned my lesson and thoroughly read about weedless lures before trying to get the hook in it. It was simple once I figured it out, as there’s a place for it to look in, through the inside of the lure, and the tips come back out just enough.
I was glad I did, as I almost got my finger with the hook and certainly would’ve if I hadn’t read up on how to safely use them. You have to be carefully aware, or else you’ll end up sticking the hook both through the lure and into your thumb, even more so than with typical lures.
I had an easier time using weedless lures with regular hooks than with weedless hooks by themselves, however, they were expensive to buy, and I frequently lose lures. Weedless hooks were more difficult to get the hang of, but they were cheaper to buy and harder to lose for me.