The Taste Of A Hook

[Guest Big G]

After reading this I can see Strawberry and cream flavoured Carp and Halibut flavoured Barbel specialist hooks on sale shortly haha

Edited December 1, 2005 by Big G

[TheMargins]

Perhaps 'Gaffer' would like to comment on the other thoughts put forward on this thread. I felt it was a good point he was raising, and agreed with him that just maybe they are put off by the hook - for whatever reason?

 

Personally, I think the thread would have gone along ok, if MALC2 had not made the initial sarcastic response! Yet I got the flack for that!

 

So Gaffer, it's your thread, why not respond?

[Peter Waller]

So Gaffer, it's your thread, why not respond?

 

I know that I wouldn't if it was put like that!

 

Perhaps he might, if you had worded it differently. Hey, Gaffer, interesting topic, any conclusions yet?

[chesters1]

i dont think the fish bother about the hook ,remember in the 50's and 60's nearly everyone smoked and the seventies was awash with brut (not the french viniger) maybe a certain taste is an atractant maybe even the metalic taste

[MALC2]

Perhaps 'Gaffer' would like to comment on the other thoughts put forward on this thread. I felt it was a good point he was raising, and agreed with him that just maybe they are put off by the hook - for whatever reason?

 

Personally, I think the thread would have gone along ok, if MALC2 had not made the initial sarcastic response! Yet I got the flack for that!

 

So Gaffer, it's your thread, why not respond?

 

Margins read back on this thread in no way was my first response sarcastic in which i said why dont you try hook skins.Most people who have replied think the subject has come to a dead end except for you.

[GlennB]

i dont think the fish bother about the hook ,remember in the 50's and 60's nearly everyone smoked and the seventies was awash with brut (not the french viniger) maybe a certain taste is an atractant maybe even the metalic taste

 

As I recall at least one of Newt's paste recipes included chewing tobacco. Another used vinegar.

 

And if metallic 'taste' is a problem, then those pikers flipping out big old spoons won't ever catch

 

Should we hair-rig those maggots to avoid the hint of hook flavour?

 

(incidentally - and seriously - has anyone here found a way to hair-rig a lobworm? )

[TheMargins]

There's a bit of a difference between using a small enough hook to catch 2 ounce roach and a big enough hook to catch a 20 or 30lb carp! The smaller hook would be completely insignificant by comparrison!

 

With regards to catching pike with metal lures etc, a slightly different scenario here too: Pike are predators and are tempted by vibration, they are hardly going to watch, scent/smell/taste(?) it before going for it are they?

[Newt]

Pike are predators and are tempted by vibration, they are hardly going to watch, scent/smell/taste(?) it before going for it are they?

 

Vibration is certainly the pike's long-range locator for injured prey. However, unless the water is very muddy (sorry, don't know the proper Brit term but water with lots and lots of suspended particles so very low visibility), they do use vision when they get close.

 

As to lures & taste, while a pike certainly may strike a flashing lure without being able to use their smell-analog sense first, they will certainly hold onto the lure for that extra fraction of a second if it is pleasant rather than nasty. More obvious with soft plastics where the addition of high levels of salt and small amounts of some of the lure scents makes the lures more effective but some metalic lures get lots of follows and strike-lets (bump but not engulf) but very few takes and that has to be down to something which could be a smell/taste/whatever.

[GlennB]

...... (sorry, don't know the proper Brit term but water with lots and lots of suspended particles so very low visibility) ....

 

Think it's "turbid" , Newt

 

But as to the whole "taste" debate, plenty of fish are also caught on plastic corn, rubber maggots, black beads imitating hemp etc etc. It seems to take the fish quite a while to detect the lack of 'proper' flavour in these baits, long enough at least to register a bite. I for one think the taste argument is hugely overstated.

 

Now the feel of a hook might be a different matter, although even there it has to be said that many fish seem willing to eat quite hard and even spiky baits. Even bare hooks from time to time

[Peter Waller]

The addition of salt, Newt, is incidental to the manufacturing process of soft plastics. Salt is a very large part of the composite of upvc based plastics. Anyway, that really is an aside.

 

Water, in the UK, that is saturated in suspended particles is 'muddy', or 'coloured'.

 

Re the taste of lures, yes, it matters. No harm in rubbing fish oils into your hands before a session, no harm in wiping oil, or 'Smelly Jelly' on your lures. I am convinced that this helps, and I am convinced that you get more positive takes.

 

Yes, pike do watch lures, I might fish a swim for twenty minutes before getting a 'take', the pike must sometimes have watched my lure go past scores of times before responding.

 

Do they smell them? Of course they do, must do, it's nature. YoZuri do plugs with a slot for either starlights, jelly, or things like fag filters that you soak in scents or oils. Pike will, I'm convinced, follow a trail of scent from a lure.

 

Taste, not sure, but sure as heck they will mouth a lure very gently, just as they do deadbaits.

 

All in all I am sure that 'smell' and 'taste' matter. But whether it does on a size 22 or not, I don't know. I am absolutely convinced that it does on lures though.