For as voracious as deep water bass and rockfish can be, anyone that’s spent time fishing them with a big plastic on a lead head can tell you that the bite to hook up ratio is often surprisingly low. While I’d always chalked that up to the fish biting the tail of the bait and not getting the hook, I learned the reality was that the fish were biting the head of the bait, but not getting the hook because it was pointed in the wrong direction.
While it takes a little bit of work, you can modify your lead head in a way that allows the hook to always be pointing in the proper direction regardless of whether the fish bites the lure from the head or the tail. An added bonus of this rigging technique is that you will get significantly more life out of your soft plastic lures. I’ve had some last through multiple trips and dozens of fish without needing to be replaced.
