Not a newbie but definitely when it comes to the sickle hook jig

[Spoonminnow]

I've owned 1/28 oz sickle hook jigs for a while having tried them a few times.

What is the consensus of sickle hook vs regular hook jigs - especially size #6 or smaller?

What about rigging them on fatter body lures? Still good hooksets?

[DockShootinJack]

I rarely use hooks that small but I do believe that the way Sickles are bent that they are stronger. Certainly hard to bend one out when it is hung

[Noodle rod]

I have been using them for several years now and feel that they do hold better and hook up a little more often, I too have big crappie as my target so the hooks are bigger even when going all the way down to 1/64th oz.

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[NIMROD]

I also use nothing smaller than #2 hook . The sickles usually sharp . No matter which hook style I bend point out just a few degrees to help hook sets.

[Spoonminnow]

What amazed me for the first time this past Mon. was catching crappie after crappie from a large school using a 3" Mann Shadow rigged on a # 6 sickle hook, 1/28 oz. jig. Up until that day the lure has never impressed me especially not for panfish. Maybe it was the 1/16 oz. jig weight used with it in the past, but for some reason crappie jumped all over it and and were hooked solid!
Note: that small hook only came out 1/4 of the length near the head yet easily hooked fish that must have gobbled the whole lure!

Would a rounded hook of the same size have worked as well? Could be, but I won't know until I get out again today or tomorrow and try both hook types with the Shadow. In any case, I just ordered 50 - #4 sickle hook jigs.

Learn something new every day!!!!!

[skeeter96]

I use 3" baits from March tell about November with 1/4 and 1/8 oz heads with 1/0 and 2/0 hooks. I down size to 2" baits in the winter. I still have some sickle hooks left but use mostly round bend hooks now because I have had to many of the sickle hook break when straightening then out when hung up. You can only straighten them once or twice before they brake at the bend and have to be replaced. Can't really say if the sickle hook has a better hook up or not but most of the fish I catch are hooked deep in the top of the mouth and the bigger hooks are buried all the way. I use 20# or heavier braid. I mainly vertical jig.

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[Spoonminnow]

A real pain to get unstuck from woody snags on bottom. Also a pain to unhook a pickerel seeing as how that special curve angle points toward the hook.

[skeetbum]

Just my thoughts. I’ve used sickle hooks almost exclusively for over ten years and seldom lose a fish that I can say is because of the hook. They don’t straighten well because they’ve been tempered to a different hardness than round bend hooks are. The hookup ratio compared to round bend is noticeably better with many hooked in the roof of the mouth, a place where I get few round bends to connect as often. The hooks are built and then bathed in acid to remove a small amount of the steel. This is why they’re sharper than any other out of the box hook I know of. When rigging plastics I pay attention to how deep I thread the hook through the plastic. As with any hook, too deep and the gap is full and the hookup suffers. I use a #8 sickle a lot and land some big fish and never have them straighten. Big catfish like my tiny jigs and while they destroy the jigs dressing or plastic bodies, the hook is intact and still connected. Hope this answered some of your questions.

[Ketchn]

don't like round bend hooks for the most part and lots of that style are really cheaply made , use mostly ONLY sickles down to number 8 and my go to is number 6 ....round bend tend be thicker and don't perform well enough in most cases to meet my standards ,of course it is an each to his own thing , but to be sure any hook will bend if you use braid and pull steady , can't remember the last "broke" hook I had , but think they were plated and they likely jacked up the temper in the plating process , I have seen a batch or 2 in the past that would break , but none in many years ....
ran thru a batch of number 8 handties one year that would bend out on anything much over a lb. , sure was frustrating me to lose larger fish that year , found one of them the other day and sure enough about the second fish , the hook was bent out ,just like back when .....
all said and done , if you are wanting to be in the numbers of landed fish and want to ketch lots , a number 6 sickle will for sure land more of them than not ....

[Spoonminnow]

I caught 90 fish this afternoon but lost as many fish on the sickle as the round bend. Maybe it was the way the fish hit & missed that had little to do with hook point direction. Fishing tomorrow and using the sickle more than today. See what happens.