Ianisdope

Very helpful again Otter. I checked out the st-41 and stx-45 and that seems to be what I'm looking for. I've definitely thought about the rod because there's more factors to hooking up than just the hooks. I've done well with other swimbaits on that rod and it's just this one since it's a little bit larger profile that's harder to hook up on.

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense. Sounds like I need to buy some hooks to play around with and see what I like. I have a black dog custom wood shellcracker that has short shank hooks with a wide gap and just about every bite turns into a hookup so I'll see if I can find similar hooks to put on the Dockrat.

I'm new on here and have tried searching for what I want to know with no luck. Do you guys prefer regular or short shank, wide gap/extra wide gap treble hooks? I used my recently purchased 7" dockrat glide gill yesterday and got a lot of bumps and had one very solid bite that didn't get hooked and I have a feeling hooks with a wide gap would've helped make that a catch. I know some fish are just gonna be too small, but I had about five followers that were 4lbs and up that bit right in front of me with no hook up. Are there any reasons why I shouldn't use wide gap treble hooks?