Need a really long-shank saltwater streamer hook

[Murrill 0]

I'm hoping to tie some large saltwater poppers for a friend who has an opportunity to fish for Giant Trevally. Essentially what I have in mind is a really big Bob's Banger. I have some 3/4" foam cylinders, and I found some really nice slitted mylar skirts that have an adhesive backing to wrap around the foam. The problem is that I cannot find a hook with a shank long enough to give adequate clearance for the point of the hook. In other words, the bottom half of the foam cylinder extends far enough down into the gap of the hook that I'm afraid it will interfere with hook-set. It seems to me the solution is to find a longer-shanked hook that will provide more separation between the foam cylinder and the point of the hook. What's the longest SS hook out there? I used a 4/0 Gamakatsu SP11-3L3H, but it was not long enough, plus it was the size of re-bar.

 

How have you solved this problem? Is there a hook out there for what I'm describing? Is there some other way to skin the cat?

 

Would appreciate any insights.

Thanks.

jm

[tidewaterfly 0]

Eagle Claw has some long shank hooks that some folks use, 66ss which can be used for poppers. They work fine for big poppers, but I don't know how good they would be for Giant Trevally.

 

I've used heavy wire Gamakatsu jig hooks to make big banger type poppers for Peacock bass but they're black nickel, not stainless. The hook eye is on the bottom of the body, which helps with picking up a big popper, and they're super sharp & strong. I wrapped the body with scaled holographic lure tape, and let it extend off the front of the body a little, and epoxied over the whole thing. The extended tape & epoxy formed a nice cupped face. The body is about 1 inch diameter.

 

Here's a picture of one, next to a crankbait for size comparison. I believe this one was about 8 inches long, and that was a 7/0 hook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

The Mustad 34011 Signature series hook is really good for that. Then, you can always take SS spinnerbait wire from Jann's Netcraft that comes with a closed circle eye (that will become your modified hook eye) and stick the straight end up or down through the eye of any of your favorite saltwater hooks and wrap it around the shank to make it as long as you want, within reason.

 

Kirk

[garthman 0]

use a spinner bait shaft (jenncraft sells them), and lash an octupus hook on at the rear ala an intruder. you can tie 8 inch long flies that way and still have only a short shank hook.

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

I have a few anglers that have had great success on G.T.s with just a large streamer fly (the Tarpon Snake in bright colors). If you want to go with poppers I'd try to go away from any conventional popper. Instead I'd consider using the same system that's currently in use around the world for sailfish and other offshore poppers. Tie up a large fly with a strong hook, then set up a popper head the same way you'd do a tube fly (tube inserted up into the popper head, cut flush with the back of the head) so that the back of the popper head butts up against the knot for the fly. That will keep your hook the proper distance from the head and yet still be castable if you keep things small enough. The anglers using my flies in the Seychelles and other locations are wading the edge of the flats and sightfishing blue trevally (up to 10lbs) and giant trevally (up to 60lbs and above). The pics they've sent me are amazing. As you can guess with the bigger G.T. they're not winning many fights since they just go over the coral edges on you. Here's a pic of the Tarpon Snake in one of the colors I've been asked for (I've done them in red/black, fl. blue/white, red/white, all fl. green). Locally I usually do them in all black for big tarpon - that was the orginal color.

 

Tight Lines

Bob LeMay