Top_Heavy's World

My brother Andy is one of the best smallmouth bass fishermen I have ever met. He took 3 people fishing this spring and the results of these 4 people was nothing short of amazing. Over 200 fish, over 19" were caught in 7 days of fishing... no bed fishing was done to do this! We were patterning prespawn and post spawn fish, in low water conditions!
If you followed my writings about picking a color and the proper bait, you read about straightening hooks on some of the really big smallies. I use a 7" med light St Croix and 10/2 power pro line. These super lines have no stretch and require a softer, longer rod with a fast tip to help hold them. Andy is a little more aggressive and doesn't like to feel over powered when he catches the occasional musky or really big catfish, so he uses 14 or 17 pound line and a medium to medium heavy 7' rod. This is heavy enough that he often pulls hard enough to straighten standard light wire hooks. Loosing fish to hook straightening is not acceptable and we have been on a year long search to remedy the problem.
Andy found a heavy hook with a wide bend that worked really well, but they are 5 jigheads for $4... we commonly loose 10 per day! I love Gamagatsu hooks, they are the best hooks on the market in my opinion, so I started with them. I custom ordered a 100 pack of 4/O Extra Wide Gap hooks with the very heavy "Super Line" wire. This is a very strong wire, wont bend on 65lb line in my dry land tests, and has the widest gap I have seen to provide proper hook ups around the thick body of a 3" or 4" tube. I prefer a 60 degree bend in my jig heads when fishing rocky areas, so that was important too. I ordered a custom mold from DO-IT molds. I did have to drill out the hook shaft hole to accomdate the thick wire, I had to drill out the large eye hole with a 3/16" bit, and I had to enlarge the eye to bend part of the mould to handle the bend of the hook. In about an hour I was ready to pour. This mold creates a 1/8, 3/16, 1/4, 5/16 and 3/8 ounce head with each pour. I purchased a LEE Pro 4-20 melting pot and set that up today. I have several hundred pounds of lead so it is just a matter of loading the huge pot with 20lbs of lead, turning it to 6 on the temp dial and waiting about 15 minutes. I poured 100 heads, trimmed and cleaned them up and sorted them by weight in less than an hour. I have $.34 into each head... a far cry from the $.80 each to purchase them!
This is the best, strongest, huge gap hook that money can buy, with the best line eye angle for swimming jigs. If you take your fishing as seriously as we do, you might want to look into making custom equipment too. Remember that lead is a dangerous material, keep it away from children and pregnant woman, wash your hands, prevent dust, and follow directions on your equipment. I am a licensed lead abator by trade and I used proper air handling equipment while working in my shop. Be safe and careful in all of you endeavors!