Cutting hooks off Jiggin Rap

Does cutting the front and rear hooks off a jigging Rap affect the pitch of the bait? IMO, the front hook is useless and likes to catch on the ice, so I assume cutting the rear one off will help keep it level.

Jigging Raps don’t cost that much. I’d use an old, beat up one as a demo. I think you’re right on the balance end though. I’ve never seen much utility in the end hooks.

I’ve caught a lot more fish on the front hook than I’ve lost due to the hook catching on the ice. At $6.99 a peice I’d hardly consider them cheap. Try a shiver minnow of you want to see how it goes without a front hook. No way I’d cut the hooks off of any of my jig raps.

Jimmy Jones wrote:

I’ve never seen much utility in the end hooks.

That’s odd. I find more of my fish hooked with either the front hook or rear hook than the center treble hook. They do tend to get hung up on the ice edge often though

Plenty of jigging rap style baits without front and rear hooks I’d just get some of those instead. I don’t and won’t cut them off.

I fish jigging raps in open water and 99% of the fish come on the hanger hook. I don’t care what others may experience, the front and back hooks lose more fish than they catch. Of course I’m not using the raps with the original hanger gook, I upsize about two sizes.

Jimmy Jones wrote:

I fish jigging raps in open water and 99% of the fish come on the hanger hook. I don’t care what others may experience, the front and back hooks lose more fish than they catch. Of course I’m not using the raps with the original hanger gook, I upsize about two sizes.

Curious how you figure the front and back hooks lose fish, especially since you only use them in open water.

I cut off my ice fishing raps . I do not lose as many fish like I use to with the hook catching the ice.

I just bend in the nose hook.

grubson wrote:

Curious how you figure the front and back hooks lose fish, especially since you only use them in open water.

Lay a conventional hook next to one of the end hooks on a jigging rap and you’ll see how fish can come off relatively easy if they’re not also hung on the hanger hook. I’ve had fish miss a pass at the jigging rap and get snagged outside of the mouth on the end hooks, which will lodge firmly in the boney parts of the head at times, but I’ve also had to explain the marks on the outside of the head to a warden too. The hanger hook doesn’t miss the mouth, so I don’t need to explain things anymore.

There are far better jigging type lures to catch fish than the jigging rap style of lures.

LOUD NOISES!

people have been altering and tweaking lures since there have been lures,
sometimes with fantastic results, sometimes not. you will never know unless you try i have cut them hooks off because it was stuck in my glove that i didn’t want to rip and did not notice any difference in action

Jimmy Jones wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>grubson wrote:</div>
Curious how you figure the front and back hooks lose fish, especially since you only use them in open water.

Lay a conventional hook next to one of the end hooks on a jigging rap and you’ll see how fish can come off relatively easy if they’re not also hung on the hanger hook. I’ve had fish miss a pass at the jigging rap and get snagged outside of the mouth on the end hooks, which will lodge firmly in the boney parts of the head at times, but I’ve also had to explain the marks on the outside of the head to a warden too. The hanger hook doesn’t miss the mouth, so I don’t need to explain things anymore.

There are far better jigging type lures to catch fish than the jigging rap style of lures.

So, They can come unhooked from the front or back hook, agreed.(just like any hook, ever) But if you remove those hooks they’ll never have a chance to hook anything.
In other words it makes no difference when it comes to landing or losing a fish.

grubson wrote:

In other words it makes no difference when it comes to landing or losing a fish.

Then don’t change a thing you’re doing to your raps. You do your thing, I do mine. Pretty simple and no hair off my hienie.

I’ve been cutting the front and rear hooks off for the better part of 10 years.
Zero negatives.

Look at the post about fish on bottom of livescope from yesterday that fish was only caught on back hook.

Always have variety.

As some fish, when they mouth the lure, sometimes not having a front hook, will allow them to engulf the lure without the hook point catching on the outside of the fish’s lips.

Some fish are just head biters, some are just tail biters, so there’s those hooks for hooking into them.

When trying to pull a lively fish into the hole, as sometimes the fish will get a hook point to catch on the ice edge. One of the worst scenario’s of losing fish. Less hook points, less potential unwanted hooks sticking into something else.

I’ll tell ya why I cut them off.
I only use the biggest size rap first off.

Too often walleyes will eat the entire bait. This is not typically a bad thing, but in the case of the jigging rap with opposing hooks and center tremble it is.
Set the hook. One of them hooks catches something in the mouth. Now with the line pulling from center and fish opening mouth and thrashing I think what often happens is a second hook catches some flesh and then they work against each other resulting in loosing fish half way to the boat (in my case, I don’t ice fish with them). Once I cut the front and rear hooks I quit dropping fish half way to boat.
Concerned that I would suffer with less hookups I didn’t cut every bait I owned until experimenting extensively. I was immediately quite amazed that there was no lack of catch rate happening. Even accidental catches like perch and small drum who could barely fit the big treble in their mouths did so. Seems like target center mass when hitting the bait. Anyway I do make my own jigging raps now and still buy some also but the first thing I do is cut them hooks off and never look back.

My 2c take it or leave it. Caught hundreds upon hundreds of eyes with largest sized rap and never felt I was missing any fish because of cutting off hooks but I did find that I was loosing significantly LESS fish.

This sums it up pretty well. ^^^^^

My fishing buddy said i need a hand . Crappie fishing last fall he rammed the treble hook from a jigging rap into a finger . He asked if i know the line trick ? Yup but never done it . He says jerk it out ,so i did and ramed the tail hook into another finger ! Pulled that one also , put a bandaid on it and kept on fishing . Maybe he would have only been hooked once had he cut the the hooks ? LOL

I did not chime in on this a couple weeks ago but I disagree with cutting the front hook off. Will it change the action? Hardly.

I understand some similar style baits don’t have them and I also understand the frustration of losing too many around rocks if you don’t cut them off.

However, I have caught a pile of fish that are ONLY hooked with the front hook. Without it, those fish get away. I would say 2 or 3 out of every 10 walleyes come on the front hook for me – I am talking summer walleyes on natural lakes here. Smaller fish (eaters) I tend to hook with the treble, larger ones seem to have it completely eaten or I barely get them with the front or rear single hook.

I was on Winnipeg yesterday and caught a big fat 28” and change that only had the front hook in her.

Edit: I only use 7s and 9s

Charlie W wrote:

I did not chime in on this a couple weeks ago but I disagree with cutting the front hook off. Will it change the action? Hardly.

I understand some similar style baits don’t have them and I also understand the frustration of losing too many around rocks if you don’t cut them off.

However, I have caught a pile of fish that are ONLY hooked with the front hook. Without it, those fish get away. I would say 2 or 3 out of every 10 <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleyes come on the front hook for me – I am talking summer <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleyes on natural lakes here. Smaller fish (eaters) I tend to hook with the treble, larger ones seem to have it completely eaten or I barely get them with the front or rear single hook.

I was on Winnipeg yesterday and caught a big fat 28” and change that only had the front hook in her.

Edit: I only use 7s and 9s

I’m confused.
Eaters eat the treble and bigger ones eat the whole thing. So your worried about catching the dinks?
Yeah, bigger fish eat the whole thing…. why I cut off front and rears.
I won’t use stinger hooks either on any bait… because all your doing by adding that is trying to catch the dinks you aren’t catching. Meh.