Hooked on the Wide Gap

I started out buying regular worm hooks.  I like saving money and those are the hooks that I find most often on sale.  My tackle arsenal has become more and more populated by soft plastics, to the point that I have considered making my own soft plastics.  It’s kind of tying your own flies for fly fishing, I think it’s pretty creative and has the potential to save you some money.  Like I said, I like saving money. 

However, you often find a little improvement on an old standard and determine that you just can’t live without it.  I have come to feel that way about the wide gap worm hook.  I can’t live without it and there are two reasons.  One, it holds the damn bait on the hook.  Two, it costs about the same. 

I have found that regular worm hooks just don’t hold onto the plastic bait as well.  If you are using baits that are made of softer plastic you will get better retention out of a regular worm hook, but you won’t get as many casts out of those softer baits.  They are more expensive but less durable and less dense and that causes a regular worm hook to back out less.  

Regular Worm Hook

 

The cheaper baits are made of harder plastic.  You get more casts out of these baits but they are denser and I find that it’s tough to keep the bait on the hook. 

I found the solution to be the wide gap hook.  All you have to do is look at the almost right angle that is formed just before the barb and the point.  That right angle allows you to come in almost parallel on most plastic baits and skin hook the point just under the surface.

Wide Gap Worm Hook with the almost 90 degree bend before the barb.

 

I get better bait retention and better hook sets when I use the wide gap worm hooks because I’m able to drive that point in almost parallel to the top or bottom of the bait and I don’t have to drive the point through the denser plastic to get to the fish.