What size hook and type would you recommend for 5 & 6" Yum Dinger I want to fish weightless ?
What size hook and type would you recommend for 5 & 6" Yum Dinger I want to fish weightless ?
4/0 Gamakatsu EWG or Berkley 19 Fusion EWG. The new Berkley hooks are very impressive.
I use 3/0 or 4/0 Gamakatsu round bend worm hooks, or EWG on occasion. You don't want too big of a hook since weightless action is pretty subtle and you want it to have all it can.
4/0 works great
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4/0 would be typical. I drop to a 3/0 with the 4 inch dinger
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I use a 5/0 offset hook. It fit great into the belly slot and if by chance the fish decides to hit it from the back, the 5 size gives you a better chance to snag it rather than have a short strike.
I personally find the dinger too light to fish weightless. I like to fish it neko style with a weedless wacky and a nail weight. Because it is lighter than a senko, I just find it is livelier with off the bottom but I need a little weight to keep it down.
Wacky-rigged, a circle hook is awesome. A 1/0 is fine on a 5", but I haven't seen either a 6" Senko or Dinger. May want to upsize for that. Ask about the hookset, because a hard yank will get you zero fish.
I can set the hook pretty hard fishing with the Yum Dingers, now in my Z Man Ned rigs, you better just do a side sweep and reeling it in. that will be suffice for the hookset or you will lose the fish.
Dogfish, have you used a "circle hook"?
I fish 6" Dinger a lot ; use 5/0 hooks
I have not used a circle hook, now that's if you are talking about those hooks used for drop shops?
Well, I use a circle hook for Dopshotting, splitshotting, Flukes and also for nose hooking and wacky rigging Senko-type baits. They're also popular for catfishing, shark fishing, etc. All the better hook companies make them. The hookset is different, which is why I said that a hard yank will not get you any fish. Reel until the rod has some bend in it, then lean into the fish. Works great if you are suffering with "tennis elbow", aka "Senkbow".
5/0 Gammy EWG and I switch between regular or monster EWG hooks to vary sink rate for weedless rig. Also like 1/0 circle hooks for wacky rig.
Why circle hook for wacky?
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My reasoning is that a circle hook isn't too much hook for a wacky rig, but an EWG looks really dumb. I'll change back & forth from nose hooked to wacky rig, depending on wind. Even a slight ripple, I'll change to wacky. The lower light penetration increases fish activity, and the wacky rig gives a better feel with some breeze, as I expect you know. It would seem like wacky rigging all the time would make sense, but I don't get bit on a wacky rig if there's no ripple on the water.
Water clarity will no doubt have some effect on this. I fished Table Rock and Dale Hollow in May 2012, and didn't think either was what I'd call "clear". If I can see a beer can on the bottom in 12', I'd say that's clear. If I can tell you what brand it is in 22', that's damned clear. I see that, sometimes, some places! I was fishing Riffe Lake in July one time and could see the tails of my #11 pork chunk jiggling in 22', with two good SM nose down on it, just wearing cheap polarized glasses. I needed a smaller bait, like a 2.5" tube.