"Kingfisher" said:
John, if you wanted to you could feed that rig a big muskie and she would swallow it just like any other rig.

Not sure what you are telling me here???

Well heres my beef with this issue. There is a large number of Musky fishermen who want to see single hooks banned for use in Musky fishing.

Illinios has already passed a law banning single hooks. I see this the same way I see Gun bans. I will not give an inch. We start banning hooks and and pretty soon someone is going to say lets ban all hooks .

The study done on single hooks should have been done on all hooks including trebles, so called quick strike rigs and circle hooks as well. The study proved that hooks do not dissolve in the mouth or stomach of Muskies that swallowed them. You and and I both know that Michigan Pike and Musky anglers have been letting Pike and Muskies swallow treble hooks for years.(Tip ups)

Now all of a sudden Maina and Bucher and a couple others have majicly turned treble hooks into what they call a quick strike rig?????????????????? . They demonize a single J hook because for years the (INSTUCTIONS ON THE BACK OF THE PACKAGE) instruct the angler to let the musky or pike swallow the bait gut hooking the fish.

Now wouldnt you say the instructions are the problem?? I know several Good pike fishermen who use single barbless hooks and quick strike with them. They do far less damage to the sub leagal pike they release then they did when using trebles. These guys are old time conservationists who see trebles as problematic. They complain about torn jaws and mouths pinned shut by the trebles. The barbless J hooks come out easy and do not tear the fish up so bad. But the bottom line is this , These guys use them to (quick strike) thier fish.

So what I am saying is this, Any hook can be used in a quick strike rig. I could for instance use a rubber band to attach to the nose and a barbless J hook attached to the dorsal fin area of the sucker and wala , I have single J hook quick strke rig. Or on the flip side of this coin lets say we ban the single hook. Now you have taken away the barbless single hook and replaced it with the treble hook. Dont you think that those who refuse to believe in quick striking wont just feed the trebles to the fish??? You know they will because they have been doing it here for a hundred years.

The wisconsin and Michigan state lines can not have two separate deffinitions of a treble hook. Over here people let fish swallow trebles over there it has been singles hook. they want to switch to trebles . I think they are stupid. Fish can swallow any hook and all hooks swallowed kill fish.

I am going to build a single hook quick strike rig and make a video of me catching and releasing a Musky with it to prove to the idiots in Wisconsin that single hooks do not kill fish. Fisherman do. My beef is that there people who want to ban J Hooks.

You see John you are an ethical fisherman. You make the choice to quickstrike when using live bait. The reason you use the rig that you use is because it has a better hooking percentage than if you replaced those trebles with barbless singles. But the truth is the singles would cause less damage to the fish.

I am just like you. I use trebles as well because they have a better hooking percentage not because they are more fish friendly. I will never use a mutiple treble hook rig again though as I had one wrap around a Muskies head and caused some bad damage to the fish. I use one treble hook in the dorsal area and I hit the fish as soon as it turns away from me and like you Ill move the boat if I have to but most of time they turn and run with the bait and I drop the hammer. I miss more fish than most guys but never have to worry about deep hooks.

Ill fight the banning of J Hooks as long as the subject keeps coming up. Mike

"Will Schultz" said:
This has nothing to do with a J hook, only that a single hook (treble or J hook) is more dangerous if it isn't QS rigged.

The semantics argument of the rig not being better but the measurement of time being "quick strike" isn't the point. Go back and read Kid Coulsons account of the fish that never moved but swallowed the sucker. All he did was follow the directions of 99% of sucker anglers that say to wait for the fish to move away.

Illinois made a decision to enforce the use of a rig that is safer for the fish regardless of the angler and how quick they set the hook. Any hook that isn't tied to the nose of the sucker in some way (treble or J hook) is more dangerous to the fish because they can more easily swallow the hook. Illinois would have been smart to say any treble or J hook must be QS rigged and anglers wanting to use a single hook, not QS rigged, need to use a circle hook(true circle and not offset point).

I can agree with that last part of your quote starting with the word Illinois. Single or double or circle for that matter. Making sure the barb faces forward is the safest way to present any hook in live bait rigging. By tying the line to the nose (which I do) does this with any hook single,treble or circle. But banning a hook because of instructions on the packages?? This is ludicris. This give antis and other nutcase groups the ammunition they need to try and stop all fishing hooks from being used.

I have never had a Musky swallow a single treble hook in over 20 catches. That is because we hit them immediatly. Heck we miss as many as we hook because of our quickness to set. But that is acceptable in my world. Better to miss a few then risk one swallowing it. What happened to Kelly was an unfortunate thing. The kid was using a quick strike rig and had been successfull in the past. This fish just didnt move with the bait. I dont believe any rig would have not gotten a hook into the gill area or throat in his case. But this proves that Muskies can and do swallow treble hook rigs.

As for double hook rigs never again for me. I had a nice pretty 43 incher get wrapped in a double treble hook rig where the wire got caught in the upper hook and it acked like a hangmans noose and put deep cuts into the fish all the way around its head. I like the one Hook, single or treble with the line tied to the nose of the sucker. There is another reason to tie the line to a suckers nose. When the boat is moving it tows them nose first not by the middle of the back. I think we all agree that allowing a Musky to swallow a hook of any kind is bad news. I just oppose the banning of any certain hook types except for lead weighted snagging hooks which are pretty obvious as to what they are used for.

I know two old timers who are as ethical tip up fishermen as any I have met. They both use single barbless J hooks and both hook thier fish in the mouth every time. One of them even uses the old Swedish L shaped hook which a fish can not swallow.They miss more fish than I do but do far less damage to mouth tissues than they did when using trebles. I run into them most every year on Big Blue lake. They quick strike every time. They do not let thier pike run and stop before hitting them. They do not put thier tip ups so far away that they cant reach them in seconds and they release a lot of smaller pike unharmed. If I had not whitnessed it I would not defend it. Quick striking is an action not a thing. Quick striking is making an ethical decision to not risk letting a fish swallow any type of bait or hook.

In my opinion Illinois should have instead wrote a law requiring all manufacturers to provide a sticker on the back of thier live bait rigs that warns of the possibility of (Sub Legal fish) swallowing hooks and killing them. The act of quick striking should be tought to all future kids coming up so that the old practices of letting Fish of any species swallow hooks is ended. From Blue gills, Brook trout,Bass , walleye to Pike and Muskie quick striking is essential to protecting sublegal fish from being killed by ingested hooks. What should be banned are instructions on packages that advocate letting fish swallow hooks as in the case with the old Wisconsin swallow rigs. But demonizing a Hook instead of addressing the real issue is stupid. Ill tell you all the truth , P.E.T.A. agrees with that hook ban in Illinois. They backed it 100 percent. And they will back every other ban on hooks,lures and fishing rights that we have.

The study should have used all hook types and I am now all for another study being done with those other hook types added to the mix.

There is a guide in Wisconsin who says he lets Muskies swallow a circle hook for ten minutes. He has killed two Muskies doing that. He says that is acceptable. I dont agree with him.

The rig I use looks just like Mike Hulberts rig. One treble hook near the dorsal with a slider that attaches to the nose. It works great. Hulbert posted a picture of it on Muskies first. Ill try to copy it and post it here. Mike

I've been going back and forth on whether or not I want to fish suckers at some point but I do know that if I do, that's the rig I'm using.

Thanks Jason, thats the one. The only thing you have to watch with this rig is to make sure you dont sink the hook too deep into the sucker. They work real well when the hook rips clear of the sucker . Now you guys can see that you could put any type of hook on that rig and its ready to quick strike with. Mike

I just wish I could go Musky fishing. Honey do honey do!!! arrg!! Mike

It's a pain how having a life with silly annoyances like loved ones and jobs and responsibilities get in the way of muskie fishing, ain't it? 🙄

You tell him Michelle!