TTT

This looks like it might work well up near the goal posts to the Bluff and beyond...

Doc, nice article with lots of good info. It looks like your hang-back method would be great to use during the blackmouth season with all of those smolts around. Sure would be nice to release those unharmed.


Fishy

My favorite "hangback" fish of the season.... here's why.

1) Willful take on a homemade creation.
2) "Flossed" as planned with the exaggerated trailer.
3) Non-mortal hooking wound.
4) Totally legal hookup by WA rules. (Whew.... talk about testing the limits of the law!)
5) Had it been wild, odds for survival are maximized.

And last but NOT least....

6) ALL hatchery fish MUST die!

I have always been intrigued by this post.As usual top notch.

I have rigged herring this way for years but for different reasons.I cast a lot of herring in the rivers during the fall.I used to tuck the trailing hook tight to the tail.Problem was that i missed most of my fish.I just could not feed them enough in the heavy river currents to get the bait deep enough to do anything but feed them.So I lengthened the trailer like you have done blamo,fish on.hooks like to tangle with the mainline or the head of the plug cut when casting, but hook ups went way up

So I brought this technique out to my shore bound Blackmouth holes.Worked great until I was forced to go barbless.The smaller fish would almost always come unstuck.Restuck..unstuck..restuck in the course of the fight.I was killing a lot of youngsters and beautiful Cuttys.I would get them in and they would look like pincushions.I have always thought that if I could get rid of the front hook I could solve this problem.I think that the two hooks take turns unduing each other.Unfortunately everything I have tried has failed miserably,wrong spin,bait flying of when I cast etc.You got any ideas??If I had my way I would still have my barbs because I know that my mortality rate with them was a lot lower.Do you have this problem with smaller fish and herring rigs?

I have a solution for your problem.

Fish with only one hook!

I created a herring rig for the Kenai a few years ago (regs allow only ONE single point hook) using a formed piece of spinner wire as the front "hook". Its sole function is to hold the bait. The hangback trailer hook catches the fish.

The top pseudo-hook has no point, no barb, and easily bends out straight if it were to inadvertently engage the fish in the "scissors" during the strike or other body parts during the fight.

I also found your observations interesting.

I have never had the "pincushion" problem you speak of with double hooks.

That said, I have doubled hooked more than my fair share of fish with my hangback herring rigs.

The trailer will "floss" the fish from the outside in, but during the fight, the "baitholder" hook will inadvertently snag the fish elsewhere. The most likely places on coho are the "nape" behind the head or somewhere in the belly. For chinook, esp those 20-25# plus, it will be in the pectoral, same side that the fish was "flossed" with the trailer. Once double hooked, I have not experienced the de- and re- hooking you describe. I have seen that happen with double hooked KwikFish, but that's because the plug has inherent mass that the fish can use to mobilize the hooks as you describe. When a salmon bites herring, the bait is quickly taken out of the picture.... no mass, no leverage, no migrating hooks!

Makes for a magnified fight, but at least it's still a non-mortal hooking wound.

If you look at the fish in the pic below, you can easily visualize how the red hook could easily hang an outstretched pectoral during the battle, moreso when the green hook is pinned around the maxillary plate.

I only notice it in the 20" and smaller.Mostly cuttys,which are my favorite fish.I do not target these guys using cut plug but they hang out in a couple of my favorite Blackmouth rips.I never had the problem with barbs.they hooked and stuck.Something about the way the Cuttys fight.Small blackies and the smaller "stuck at home coho" also.

Thanks to your suggestion and a little midnight engineering and I have a new idea.I am going to make a Hook out of some wire,allowing me to hook my cut plug the way I always would ,but make it long enough that I can bend the "point " of the hook back towards the tail,after baiting.This will keep the bait from flying off when casting,and take the top hook out of the equation.I will have to experiment with materials but I suspect that spinner wire will work wonderful.As long as it does not break where I keep bending it back.I think that this will also allow me to adjust how my bait is spinning.The red label can be hard to get to spin correctly.

I wish my Black Labs mind was a hard drive some times.I could post some pics of 10-13 lb black mouth caught from shore.Early in the morning,right here in downtown Bremerton.The key is catching a tide change,at day break,high just switching to head out.Them buggers come in the straights and dyes inlet to feed at night and ride the tide out at day break.May when the chums are dropping out of Chico and barkers creek,they do not care any more and feed heavy in the shallows all day.Nothing,to me, like watching a 10 lb blacky come slashing in at your feet.I digress.

Thanks for your help.What is it Herzog likes to say.There is nobody as smart as the all of us.something like that.Thanks