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BBB HONOR ROLL |
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Colored hooks a gimmick to catch fish or fisherman
Bill Reabe - 5/1/2000 8:30:00 AM
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If you're like me, the first time I saw the colored hooks come out I just chuckled and said "oh boy another new gimmick to catch the fisherman," but here is some
information that might interest you about the different colored hooks on the market and some tests that I performed using them.
THE HOOK
One evening several years ago Mike Boettcher who is the owner of Hawg Wild Enterprises in Altoona, WI called me and invited me out to eat and to talk to me
about a new product that he guaranteed would help me catch more fish. Since Altoona is close to where I live I accepted of course and asked where we should
meet, figuring that we would be going to some high class night club or something. "Well how about I meet you at McDonalds" he said and of course I thought to
myself boy this should be a good waste of time but I said "OK" anyway and asked him how I would recognize him. "I'll have on camo pants that are full of paint" he
said. Now I was getting even more skeptical but I decided what the heck I'll see what the guy is talking about. When someone says he can help me catch more fish
I'm all ears. When we finished our quarter pounders he invited me to go to his shop to show me what he had that he thought would help me catch more fish. We
arrived at his shop (which was a garage) at about 7:00 p.m. and went inside. That's when I found out that you don't go visit Mike unless you have a lot of spare time
to kill cause I didn't get home till three hours later. That's how long it took him to finish explaining his product to me, show me all of his things and then send me home
with bags full of Hot - Hooks and other items to try.
Mike is the original designer of the colored hook, he has a patent on it and together with his business partner Lance Squires has done extensive testing on many
different species of fish using Hot - Hooks. These hooks are unique since they are not just painted hooks like a few other companies sell but they are painted with
Power - Glow paint which is a glow in the dark paint that was perfected by Mike. Since his paint is not a fluorescent paint but is actually powered by ultraviolet it
will stay glowing under water during the day and even at night if its a clear night and there are stars out. The paint is so tough that it will not scratch off on rocks or
even when you use pliers to remove the hooks. Sound too good to be true? Well this is why I decided to do some experimenting on my own to find out if they do
make a difference.
THE LINE
First of all I wanted to find out whether or not they can actually help catch more fish so here is some of the testing that was done to find out. My tournament partner,
Tom Hoinacki and I did some experimenting on Walleyes using Hot - Hooks on half of our lines and regular hooks on the other half. The first time we tried them we
caught 7 fish on the colored hook and that included a six pound walleye, and just 2 on the plain hooks. Another time we caught 9 on the colored hooks and 0 on the
plain hooks. We also tried some of the other colored hooks that are on the market to see if we would get the same results. Though a painted hook performed better
than a non painted hook they did fall short of the results produced by the Power - Glow painted hooks by about one half. These results along with other tests were
very convincing and made it easy for us to start using these hooks at tournaments on a regular basis.
The most phenomenal success though was when they were tested for Walleyes through the ice. In one test there were 18 tip - ups put out with half of them using
colored hooks and the other half again using plain hooks. All of the tip - ups were randomly placed and baited with the same type of minnow. At the end of the days
fishing there had been 17 bites with 15 of them on colored hooks which in this case were Hot - Hooks and only 2 on regular hooks.
More extensive testing proved that certain colors worked better at certain times such as low light periods while others worked better on bright days or in the middle
of the day. I found that they can be used with any kind of live bait, for any kind of fish and at any time of the year with basically the same results. They can also be
used with excellent results rigging with plastic for Bass or when using live Suckers for Musky. It appears that the flash of color combined with the live bait or plastic
has an affect on the fish and triggers them to strike while they may not bite at all with just a plain hook. Even using colored hooks along with different spinner
combinations especially Bait Rigs AstroBrite Walleye Spinners proved that the flash of color on the hook along with the live bait had a positive effect on whether or
not the fish would strike. In fact the fish seemed to target the colored hook and fish caught on double hook rigs would usually be caught on the colored hook.
THE SINKER
I could go on and on with results of different tests that were done but my suggestion is to try the colored hooks for yourself and then make your own decision. If you
feel that they are just a gimmick then don't buy any, but since first being introduced to Hot - Hooks my partner Tom and I have won 2 Masters Walleye Circuit
tournaments and become one of the hottest teams on the circuit. I wont say that using these hooks is the only reason we've been successful or if the colored hooks
that are just painted would work as well, I guess you can be the judge of that. I know what I think and what our tests proved and I do know that colored hooks
made a contribution at tournaments where we used them.
If you can't find Power - Glow colored hooks look here on ebait.com Luretech Store or at your local sport shop have your dealer order them from: Luretech Enterprises inc. 800 Wisconsin St Box 17, Eau Claire, WI. 54703 or call 715-832-0330. If you want to try the plain painted hooks they can be ordered from most of your major catalogs. Be sure to try them with Bait Rig's AstroBrite Walleye Spinners and instead of trying to hide the hook in your bait like we did for years why not use the hook as an attractor. In fact because of the color I think of them as an ultra - lite jig. Try em you might like em!
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