Owner Hooks

Casey Martin Simplifies Florida Grass Fishing

Published: 21 August 2012
Written by Bait Bro
1 Comment
Categories: 2012 Tournament Fishing, Grass Punching, Owner Hooks, Rods, Shimano, Small Bait Fishing, Terminal Tackle

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sde0QhrZngY]

Casey Martin is a Canadian, and he blends in as a Southerner about as well as I do.   However, when you put a rod and reel in Casey’s hand, you’d think he was born and raised on the banks of the Tennessee River or in the lowland grass fisheries of Florida.   Casey fishes the FLW Tour as a co-angler and has won 3 events (the 2011 FLW Tour Open Guntersville “A-Rig” Super Nova Tournament,  2011 FLW Tour Open on Champlain, and the 2012 FLW Tour Major on Kentucky Lake) in the last 12 months.  Having a chance to fish with Casey during the off limits time prior to the 2012 FLW Tour Open on Lake Okeechobee afforded me some time to fish with Casey, and this blog post and the adjoining video are the highlights.  Casey has been working hard the last 5 years, living on Lake Guntersville, fishing with his pals Derek Remitz and Craig Dowling to hone his tournament and grass fishing approaches.  Clearly, it’s paying off.

Punching ’em in the mouth. Casey, the 4.20 Sweet Beaver, 1.5 oz of Picasso Tungsten and the 4/0 Owner Twistlock Flippin Hook getting it done, and then things tightened up a bit….

Casey keeps his grass fishing simple.  It goes like this:

  • Have a Sweet Beaver and BB Cricket ready to go as your punch baits (a full bodied punch bait on a 1.5 ounce Picasso tungsten weight, and a smaller profile Gambler BB Cricket as your fall back, the fish are pressured and not biting the Sweet Beaver anymore, more finesse punch bait)
  • Get in the habit of having perfect mechanics in grass punching.  Never waste movements, time or water by making the most precise and efficient casts you can (ie, his sling cast where he never touches his bait and slings an incoming bait back out using the momentum of the incoming pendulum).  Keep yourself in position and be ready for a hard upward hookset, get on the reel quickly, and pull fish out from the thick stuff as quickly as possible for the best chances of boating ’em.
  • Jig fishing.  Use the jig to fish the sparse stuff, where you don’t need punching gear to get thru the vegetation.   Sparse reed patches, isolated clumps of grass, and where ever you don’t need punching stuff to get a bait in.
  • Keep your hardbait selection simple.  Use a Devil’s Horse or gold Rattle Trap to cover water and find fish that are in between your flip and pitch spots.  There is no need to re-invent the wheel here.  Rattle Traps and Devils Horses in Florida are like drop shots and swimbaits in California.  They are proven and work, so just go with it.

Here is a breakdown of the gear Casey was using:

Punching Setup #1:

Reaction Innovations 4.20 Sweet Beaver, Penetration Color

1.5 ounce Picasso Tunsten Weight

Bobber Stops to Peg Weight

4/0 Owner Twistlock Flippin Hook or 4/0 Gamakatsu Flippin Hook

70# Daiwa Samurai Braid

7’5″ G-Loomis Mossyback Flippin Sticks with Left Handed Shimano Curado 200 or Chronarch Reels

Finesse Punching Setup #2

Gambler BB Cricket in Junebug

1 ounce Picasso Tungsten Weight

Bobber Stop to Peg Weight

3/0 Gamakatsu Flippin’ Hook

70# Daiwa Samurai Braid

7’5″ G-Loomis Mossyback Flippin Sticks with Left Handed Shimano Curado 200 or Chronarch Reels

Grass Flippping Jigs

Medlock Jigs are difficult to find.  The only place I know is: Lorida Bait and Tackle:  863-655-5510

Alternatives to the Medlock Jig are the:

Strike King Hack Attack Jig (1 oz)

Gambler Ugly Otter Trailer for Jig

Hardbait Setups:

Devils Horse   3/8oz. (any color)

Rat-L-Trap  1/2 ounce Gold Shad color

15# Seagar Florocarbon  (for Rattle Trap fishing)

 

Follow Casey Martin’s fishing at caseymartinfishing.com.  Casey is on his way to a stellar career in professional fishing, and is already competing and winning at the sport’s highest levels and continues to soak up and re-apply information and techniques he is learning with brilliance.  Casey works with the best companies in the business like:  Omega Custom Tackle, Picasso, Rat-L-Trap, Power Pole, Evinrude Outboards and Ranger Boats.   If you have a chance to interact with these companies, let them know Casey is out there not only representing this companies, but showing these products in real world/tournament usage.   It’s one thing to talk about products, its another to get film and footage that validates the things you are trying to convey.   Casey works hard at his fishing, while still holding down contracted work as an electrical engineer for the automotive industry.   Look for Casey to ease his way into fishing from the front of the boat at the FLW Tour level, but what is the rush?   Casey has nothing but time and wisdom to make good decisions at the right time.  In the mean time, look for him at the top of the leaderboard at the Everstart, BFL, and of course the FLW Tour Co-Angler levels for now.

“Anything I can do, Casey can do better! ( and faster, quicker, less complicated and more efficiently)”

 

***The ‘striping’ caused in some clips of the video were caused from a failed hard drive.  I went the thru the painful and expensive ‘data recovery’ process, hence the striping and distortion.***

Music:

“Che Seville”

Album: The Left Hand Side

Label:  Body Deep Music

Owner Hyper Crosslock Snaps

Published: 13 August 2012
Written by Bait Bro
No comments
Categories: MS Slammer, Nezumaa Rat, Owner Hooks, Rigging, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD
Owner continues to lead in terminal tackle that matches the physics of bigbait fishing. With the Owner Hyper Snaps, we now have high quality snaps that can be added to bigbaits, without worry about snap failure. These things are gorgeous stainless steel, and are a wonderful contrast to the junk snaps out there.

 

Most swimbaits and bigbaits are best fished when you tie your line directly to the bait.  No need for a ring or snap, but not always.   It can be difficult to find good solid terminal tackle that matches the physics of bigbait fishing.    Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings are super high quality split rings that miraculously filled a void in that department, and have been a staple in my swimbait fishing for years.   Now, with the addition of the Hyper Snaps, Owner has stepped up to the plate in providing super high quality stainless steel, superior strength crosslock snaps.   The Owner Hyper Snaps are rounded and reasonably balanced/symmetrical, which is important because who wants unbalanced stuff, when given the choice?

$4.50 for 9 of them. Go ahead, splurge and get size #1, #2, and #3, and you’ll be covered for you small-medium-large swimbaits and bigbaits. However, if you happen to be fishing the super magnum baits or fishing for super magnum striper or some other massive 40-70+ pound gamefish and need the convenience and action snaps provide, the #4 is rated to 165 pounds.

 

When are snaps are good idea?  It comes down to some personal preferences in how you fish, the retrieves you choose, the baits you throw, and your style of fishing.  For me, snaps come into play when:

  • Night Fishing.  I like to use snaps on my Slammers and Nezumaa Rats at night, because I have less vision on my bait, and like the sloppier swim a snap provides me at night.  I feel like there is more clack and play in my slower moving wake and topwater bigbaits with a snap.
  • Finding Mrs. Right.  Snaps give you the chance to go fishing and not have to waste time re-tying in order to change size, color, or bait.   So for example,  when I head out to Okeechobee and have a hardbait on my mind, and I’ve spent months preparing (ie, acquiring the baits, changing hooks and split rings, making modifications to them, etc)  to take that bait and put it work, I’ll use snaps to fish the baits and see which ones perform best, which color looks the best in unfamiliar water (the black water of Okeechobee does bizarre things to how the color of your baits appears in the water), which ones are most buoyant, and just have the chance to make efficient decisions because snaps allow you make quick changes of your baits.  I’ll have an open box and keep throwing 3-6 different sizes and colors of the same bait until I find one that matches what I want it to look like and do.
  • Fixing Lemons.  Some of your swimbaits and bigbaits just don’t swim well. It happens.  Snaps provide you a fall back to try and see if you can make your bait swim or perform better.  For example, you can turn a MS Slammer that perhaps doesn’t slow wake or swim super well on the surface into a good topwater twitch/pause bait, or adding a snap to an MS Slammer can turn a wake bait into a super shallow cranking bait.  So, use snaps when you have a bait you aren’t 100% happy with how it performs, and need another something to try and see how it fishes.  Snaps typically loosen up the swim, make your bait a bit more sloppy.
70-165# ratings, which is going to cover your smallest to biggest swimbaits, and do it right, with the highest quality stainless steel.

 

I use snaps when testing and tuning baits, but find snaps can make certain baits, like the MS Slammer, perform differently….going from wakebait on the surface to shallow cranker.

Rigging the 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Top Hook Trout

Published: 16 July 2012
Written by Bait Bro
No comments
Categories: Huddleston Deluxe, Owner Hooks, Rigging, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD
Recommended rigging for the 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Top Hook style trout swimbait.   The #2 Owner hook fits the bait well and is about as wide as the bait, and of course is balanced, so it rigs cleanly with one treble in the belly, two prongs out, in perfect symmetry.

The 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Trout is sweet candy bar sized swimbait that fits certain applications in swimbait fishing.  Namely, smallmouth, spotted bass, tournament largemouth, and trophy brown trout.   The 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Trout, whether you are fishing the ROF 5 or ROF 12 model, both have a top hook.  So, you don’t necessarily need a bottom trap hook, however, in a lot of open water situations or situations like smallmouth or spotted bass fishing where the fish don’t always inhale the bait, a good stinger hook/trap hook setup helps with hook up percentages and just get those short and underside bites in the boat.

Here is what you need

ST-36 vs. ST-56

You can bet I’m working on a matrix and blog post that speaks to treble hooks and swimbaits.  Until then, let me try and simplify this.  I always will use an ST-36 treble hook when I can get away with a 1/0 or bigger sized treble hook.  The ST-36 is just superior sharp, well balanced, and hooks fish for me.   However, when faced with using a #2 sized ST-36 treble hook, I assess my rod, my reel, my line and what I’m hunting, because you can bend out a #2 ST-36 treble hook using a Shimano Calcutta 300 or 400 TE, 65 Pound Braid or 25 Pound P-Line Copolymer, and a medium sized 8 foot swimbait rod.  That is just the physics of swimbait fishing.   Not to say you bend out a hook every trip because I’ve successfully caught many nice fish on #2 ST-36, however, I have recently began using the Owner ST-56 treble hooks in places where I need small, strong and uber sticky trebles, and don’t need something as heavy duty as the ST-66s we use as part of our Huddleston Rig.   So, if you are fishing for big fishes, like 4-6 pound spotted or smallmouth or really big brown trout or are fishing straight 65 pound braid and have some decent largemouth going, consider the ST-56 because you won’t bend out a hook if you happen to hang the fish on one treble and things to the wrong way for you which occassionally happens when just the right amount of torque happens on one treble.  You never know when or exactly why, just too much stress on it and it bends.  This happens to all lighter wire hooks by the way.  That is why hooks are made in 2X, 3X, 4X etc configurations.   Physics is a much bigger part of fishing swimbaits because the baits and fish are so much heavier, and so are the rods, line, gears and torque of the reel.   I would fish the ST-36 Stinger Trebles if I was fishing for money.   Meaning, if every bite and getting every fish in the boat, and was likely after 3 pounders or even good solid 2+ pounders, where just catching the fish, where you not likely to be catching ‘trophies’ because you’re more in a tournament mode of hunting bigger fish, I’d go ST-36 because the odds of bending out a hook are rare, but it does happen.  I’d take on the risk to gain the reward of the sticky-ness of that treble hook.  It is incredibly sharp and perfectly balanced, so it rigs very cleanly.

24.5″ Brown Trout, Cotter, Arkansas choked the 6″ Huddleston Deluxe Top Hook Trout. You don’t need a trap hook when they eat like this, but I like to have one on there, because they won’t always choke your bait, especially when it comes to smallmouth and spotted bass. Trap hooks just help, and the Owner Treble Hooks and Hyper Wire Spit Rings are a staple in my swimbait fishng and trap hook rigging, and have been for years.  I’m getting better at matching my terminal and other tackle, it’s a system and mindset based on experience.

Swim Signature: Owner Flashy Accent Trailer Blade

Published: 26 June 2012
Written by Bait Bro
1 Comment
Categories: Owner Hooks, Rigging, Small Bait Fishing, Swim Signatures, Terminal Tackle, The Alabama Rig

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6k4B5tfsks]

Owner Hooks has done something pretty cool with the Flashy Accent Trailer Blade series.   The Flashy Accent is meant to compliment and add flash to any bait.   You can add a flashy blade on a barrel swivel to just about any bait  you can imagine.   I cannot at all claim to have even scratched the surface of what these Flashy Accent’s are capable of.  There are just too many baits and applications.

You have two willow leafs and one Indiana blade to choose from. Way too much still to explore, but pretty neat how well these compliment small baits, and even fish well stand alone.

Senko Upgrade:

Its hard to beat a Senko.  Any accessory that will actually compliment one of the Top 3 fish catchers of recent history, is something to consider.  Keith Poche put a blade in a Senko and put together an awesome 2012 BassMaster Classic as a result. A simple modification to a simple bait to give it a different look and fingerprint.  The Flashy Accent is perfect for job to Poche your Senko.  The Senko is so do nothing, so neutral buoyant, so simple, that adding flash to it and changing its original is always going to have drawbacks, but shoot, it’s going to have advantages at times too.  Around current, where the blade is going to be flopping and turning and churning in the eddies and fast water sections, the Flashy Accent is going to really liven up and enhance what the Senko might do.  I love how the bait helicopters straight down.  Looks like an arrow or missle or something headed straight toward the bottom, but also uses the blade to glide along.  The bait (and this happens when you’re drop shotting too) will rest on the face of the Flashy Accent and use it to plane as it falls sometimes.  The other times it tends to helicopter the blade, blade end first, of the Senko and I really like that look.   I tried to capture that in the video above.   Fishing the 5″ Senko on a #1 Owner Mosquito Hook with criss crossed O-Rings that you put on with a Wacky Tool.

Part One: Cut #1 Paper Clip. Use to pin the Flashy Swimmer, thru the swivel, you can even remove the plastic keeper if you want and save it for using as a hook keeper, the paper clip will hold the swivel metal to metal just fine. Super Glue paper clip into bait with Flashy Swimmer, very carefully, for added insurance.
Part 2: take the horse shoe cut paper clip and shove it down snugly into the end of your Senko. Use your pliers to narrow up and make the horse shoe longer, etc to best secure the Flashy Swimmer into the bait.
Completed Rig. Snug down the horseshoe and go fish. I like the larger of the two willow leafs for the 5″ Senko. The smaller willow leaf Flashy Accent would look great in the 3 & 4″ Senkos.

Head Spins:

The Fish Head Spin is quietly and consistently catching lots of fish in lots of places.  Grass, hard bottom, river, whatever.   Places where the A-Rig is now catching them, which is lots and lots.   The beauty of the Head Spin is adding some bladed flash to a swimming bait.  Now, with the Flashy Accent, you can turn your drop shot baits into mini ‘head spin’ setups.  Especially when you use full bodied drop shot baits.    As well, with the Flashy Accent Senko Rig ala Keith Poche’s 2012 BassMaster Classic performance, you are turning your Senko into a head spin/spinnerbait of sorts.  Notice how the Flashy Accent causes the Senko to fall blade end first, and how the blade turn and spins or helps the bait glide back to the bottom.  The Flashy Accent is helping us blend styles and techniques, and your only limitation is your imagination.   Here I am fishing the 1/2 oz Fish Head Spin with a Little Dipper as a trailer and the larger of the two willow leaf Flashy Accents.

How do you make a Fish Head Spin better? If “Fish Head Spinning” your Senko might make a Senko better, in some cases, how about Alabama Rigging (multi-rigging) your Fish Head Spin?  Where you have a sorta bait ball appeal, the Flashy Swimmer gives another blade and flash to the Fish Head Spin.

Drop Shotting:

You can drop shot the Flashy Accent Trailer Blade as a stand alone bait.   When your drop shot bait is on the bottom, you can do mini ‘strokes’ and the Flashy Accent fishes like a mini spoon, like guys who stroke spoons off ledges off the Tennessee River.  Pretty cool drop shot refinements and integration of a few techniques into one.  When you add a Flashy Accent Trailer Blade to your drop shot softbait, you give your softbait a look it probably hasn’t had much.  I found the Flashy Accent compliment full bodied shad style drop shot baits like the Yamamoto Shad Shape, Jackall Clone Fry  and Owner Wounded Minnow really well.   If conditions call for a more horizontal and castable drop shot approach, you can sorta slow grind/hop your drop shot to make it a swimbait with this setup.  Swimming your drop shot rig.   It has given me the idea that I really need to lighten up the drop shot weights I’m using, especially in shallow water/current situations where you want your rig to tumble and come over gravel well.   A well matched, l drop shot weight could be used to literally allow you to swim a small drop shot worm, like a fish head spin/drop shot combo, 1.5 -3 feet off the bottom from 0-100 feet.   Anyway, that’s what I saw in the Flashy Accent in its action and fishability with the Wounded Minnow.   I’m fishing the Wounded Minnow on a #2 Mosquito Hook.  You could definitely sorta ‘stroke’ your drop shot too, which is wild.

Drop shot the blade only and ‘stroke’ the blade on slack line with a drop shot setup. Pretty cool action and a new twist on drop shot fishing.
Owner Flashy Accent turns you drop shot into a head spin/swimbait of sorts, if you use a full bodied shad style drop shot bait. This is the Owner Wounded Minnow I’m using to show how the Flashy Accent compliments a drop shot bait.

Alabama Rig:

If you look at the implications of umbrella rigs and what the Alabama Rig did to our fishing, you realize we are foolish to not be using teasers and dummy baits at times give the appearance of a school of bait.   The Flashy Accent provides you a mechanism to ‘A-Rig’ whatever you want, like a hard bait, or any hard bait you can think of.    You basically are only limited by your skills with rigging, but the hardware is now there to add little blades to baits that otherwise had none.

Indiana Blade Owner Flashy Accent on a 3″ Big Hammer, which tells me it can be fished on the Alabama/Umbrella rigs too.  Why not add blades and additional teasers to swimbaits in some cases, especially umbrella rig cases?

The Rig Affect

You can say things about the Flashy Swimmer that put it in the same conversation as the Alabama Rig.  You are creating multiple flashes within one castable lure.  You’re re-arranging the way blades are being strung up and hung…lets see we have inline blades and safety pin framed bladed baits.  Underspins and Head Spins quietly join the party.  Look at what Spencer Shuffield did at the 2012 FLW Tour Table Rock Lake event and the umbrella rig he was throwing in Missouri.   It had 3 teaser blades as part of the setup.  Missouri is a 3 bait only state so to maximize his effectiveness and fish within the rules, here comes this edition.  Flashers and teasers, get your mind out of the gutter, we are talking about catching those suspended fishes that chase balls of baits here. My aloha pal Trevor Lincoln, from down around the junction of El Capitan and San Vicente Lakes (San Diego, CA), makes this bait called the Trip Jig.  I cannot share all the details of everything I know about the Trip Jig that my friends share with me because it’s not mine to share.  However, I can share what I’ve done to the Trip Jig thus far, since I fished around a lot of shallow grass this year in the SouthEast (Okeechobee, Seminole, Guntersville, Santee Cooper), and gone thru a bunch of Grass Minnows in the process:

The Trip Jig with 3 Grass Minnows on Lake Guntersville. The Trip Jig has absolutely no class: short skirt, flashy, teasy sorta bait that can be fished weedless style.

Moving Forward:

The Flashy Accent is a very unique accessory and new piece of terminal tackle in my tackle box.  I basically try putting it on a bunch of various baits and see how it swims and looks and fishes.   And of course, I’m fishing the ones I like and collecting footage to share in the future.   The Flashy Accent is just something that literally compliments or adds some flash to just about any bait in your box. I tried to show some basics on ways I have found worthy of exploration to start.  How about taking off hooks on hardbaits and using blades as teasers instead?  You ever notice some Japanese hardbaits come with blades as tails and they basically put blades in places we don’t expect them at times?  The umbrella rig and what we’ve learned about bass willing to chase an entire bait ball better than a single stand alone, especially while suspended.  All related stuff to where and why the Flashy Accent has my attention and is being integrated into my fishing.    Swimbait/bigbait implications?  Don’t know yet. Have some ideas and applications but haven’t validated it enough to say.  Work in progress.   Feel free to join the conversation and post your thoughts/experiences below.  MP

Swim Signatures: The 3:16 Lure Company Sunfish

Published: 5 June 2012
Written by Bait Bro
3 Comments
Categories: 3:16 Lure Company, Bluegill/Sunfish Baits, Owner Hooks, Swim Signatures

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvgiSIRm6lQ]

The 3:16 Lure Company Sunfish is a bait I reconnected with this year.  I had fished it before, but after some sitting and thinking about some things, simplification and just expansion of the bigbait journey, I realized the bluegill/brim/sunfish space was something I needed to focus and commit to.   I tied the 3:16 Sunfish and hit Okeechobee this past winter, and immediately picked up where I’d left off with the bait some years ago on places like Lake Otay.   Let me be clear, you need a bluegill/brim/shellcracker/sunfish swimbait approach, especially around the spawn.    So, the 3:16 Sunfish (and you should know that the 3:16 Bluegill is the exact same bait, just poured in a different color.  Both baits are killer. I just like a little chartreuse and watermelon green in my life whenever possible), is a fish catcher.

The 3:16 Lure Company Sunfish. A great swimming bait, booted tail with lots of lift which helps get it up around shallow grass, yet, you can still sink it out and slow grind it back for a more mid water column retrieve. The bait can definitely be burned and it still runs amazingly true, as per the fast water section of the above video clip.

I fish the 3:16 Sunfish on a medium action 8 foot rod, moderate fast, parabolic style, 965 BBR G-Loomis Rod with a Calcutta 300 TE Reel.  I am using 65 Pound Power Pro Braid (no mono leader as per in the video, yet….I’m still messing around but straight 65# braid is awfully good) and one single 1/0  ST-41 Owner Treble Hook.  Why the ST-41?  I feel like the ST-41 Treble Hooks are excellent when fish load up and just eat a bait. you don’t ‘skin hook’ or barely hook fish on the 3:16 Sunfish.  They eat the whole damn thing.   If I’ve only got one hook, and I’m getting 4-6+ fish, which is common, I need one strong hook and the ST-41 has worked well for me, especially when matched with 65# Braid.   You could definitely use the ST-36 Owner Stinger Treble here too.  I am constantly trying new things and just sorta testing and seeing what works and what doesn’t and found the single 1/0  ST-41 Treble Hook to match this bait and how I’m fishing it on braid really well.

Slashing and Burning. The tail of the 3:16 Sunfish and Bluegill is a ‘slasher’ as far as I’m concerned. It’s like a buzz saw. But it’s got a lot of twist in it too, so what do you call a twisting buzz saw? A twistbuzzstersaw. Say that 5 times fast!

The purpose of this Swim Signature series is to provide an underwater and slowed down look at various baits, big and small.  Not to critique or necessarily ‘review’ the baits, at least, not yet.  This is an objective, here is this bait swimming in the water look.  You can form you own conclusions, but I suggest you might pick one or four of these 3:16 Sunfishes up.  They are softbaits, they fish really well, you can catch a bunch of fish per bait, and you will see in some future productions, they catch nice size and numbers.  For $12.99 you get a lot of bait that will be worth the money, and I’m about 99.99% sure your bait will run true, as per Mickey’s packaging and quality control standards. His baits just swim bang on out of the box.   Bass inherently have a contentious relationship with the panfishes, which means they tend to eat them out of anger and hunger, which tells me I need to be throwing them, especially when trout are not an option.

What do Paul McCartney and the 3:16 Sunfish have in common? They both love to twist and shout. “You know you twist so fine!”

Music:

“Che Seville”

Album: The Left Hand Side

Usage Courtesy:  Body Deep Music

Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings

Published: 26 April 2012
Written by Bait Bro
No comments
Categories: Huddleston Deluxe, MS Slammer, Nezumaa Rat, Owner Hooks, Terminal Tackle, Triple Trout
owner hyper wire split ring
Size 6 Owner Hyper Wire mangled in a melee that involved a big eyed bruiser that lived around a large laydown tree. Split rings on big hardbaits are particularly vulnerable to bending out. A fish can use the the hook points on the other side of the treble than he/she is stuck onto and create "lever action" and put incredible strain on your split ring and hook. You hook gets bound up on the side of the hardbait and if the fish has the direction and leverage, bad things could happen. Not often, but for the investment, it's a no brainer, especially if you are really putting time into hunting a big one.

With everything getting  a little bit bigger, and more swimbait like, even more the reason to pay attention to your terminal tackle.  All these long cranking rods like the Wright McGill, Okuma, Duckett Rods, that are approaching 8 feet long, microguides, 7:1 reels and guys are generally now throwing much longer rods on average than even a few years ago.  Swimbaits aside, longer rods mean more leverage and power and torque that can be applied to fish and hence the need for superior terminal tackle.  Faster reels mean more physics involved, speed kills and magnifies weakest links.   The Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring was a God send to the swimbait fishing community years ago.  It never ceases to amaze me how good simple terminal tackle can be so hard to find.   Split rings are often an afterthought and not much of a conversation, but Owner changed that with the introduction of the Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring.  Split rings can be a weak point, so be warned.

Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings
Practice what you preach. I have spent a lot of money over the years on Owner Hyper Wires. You can re-use them, they hold their shape well and they don't rust. I use the Size 4 thru Size 7 anytime I have a hanging treble, period.

1) Number 4 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings:

  • Mini/Stubby Triple Trout: anytime I’m using small hard bodied swimmers, I tend to go for #4 Hyper Wires and Owner ST-56 trebles.
  • replacement split rings for RC 2.5s and other full bodied square bill and conventional crank and hard baits where big fish happen in shallow water, close range or on braided line.  Even certain topwater baits, like the Pencil Popper.
Little hard baits need to be balanced too. Size 4 Owner Hyper Wires balance very nicely with the ST-56 Treble Hooks and are a good compromise for small baits where you need small sharp, thinner diameter hanging trebles. The Size 4 ring is just small and fits the size of the bait and hook nicely, and gives you a guarantee you aren't going to have split ring failure, even if you fish these style of baits on 50# braid, 17-20 mono or floro, and med-light 8 footers, which most of us tend to do. Little swimmers are best served on long rods, just like big swimmers, and you've got to balance the hooks and rings with to the rod and reel and just be sure you don't have a 'weakest link', because it will be found by the fish, sometime, and you better hope it's not the 'one'. Even 5-7 pounders can wreck cheap split rings. Tournament and trophy implications with split rings and hooks.

2) Number 5 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings:

The #5 Owner Hyper Wire Split Ring on the 8" Huddleston Deluxe Trout. You want the smallest and strongest possible ring. It holds onto that #2 Owner ST-66 treble up front in our Southern Trout Eater Huddleston Rig, and it has never failed me.

3) Number 6 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings:

triple trout owner hyper wire
The 7" Triple Trout, with #6 Owner Hyper Wires. Add to that, 65# Braided line, Calcutta 300 or 400 TE reels, moderate fast/slow action 8 footers and you'll understand that hooks and rings can easily be bent out, shore up vulnerability where you can and get the right rings especially for snatching bigbaits around grass on braid. The size 6 Owner Hyper Wire is probably the most universal for most hanging treble type baits.

4) Number 7 Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings:

  • 7/9/12″ MS Slammer (the Slammer has HUGE eye screws that screw into the wood, so you need a big ring to get around the thick eye bolt/screws that make up the hook hangers on the MS Slammers)   (SEE BELOW)
Number 7 Hyper Wires for the MS Slammer and any of the bigbaits with the big eye screws where you attach the ring to. You simply cannot get a #5 or #6 over the eye screw (without major effort). It's just not worth it. Get the #7s and be done with it and know you're ready for battle with the biggest.
Bits and Bites/Speeds and Feeds

Bottom line is, if you are serious about your swimbait and bigbait fishing, you need to be thinking about Owner Hyper Wire Split rings.  If you are a guy who is fishing 1 ounce rattle traps and big topwater baits and pushing the envelope on hanging trebles on your standard hardbaits out there, you should be looking at Owner Hyper Wire Split Rings as added insurance, size 4 in particular.  Especially if braid and/or big fish are in your life.   Once you start paying >$15 for your swimbaits and bigbaits, adding a $.50 split ring and premium hooks to your baits is just common practice.  You can and will bend out hooks and rings.  It’s either going to happen on a straight pull or it’s going to happen where the fish uses the hard body to pry open the split ring in an instant of tug-o-war.  Anytime you get locked up on a fish, or the fish hangs the bait into a tree or in some grass, now split ring are tested.   I’ve never had one fail me, even though I’ve had a couple bend out like the one above—but not fail, imagine what would have happened without using an Owner Hyper Wire?   The fish and the hook would have been gone.