I decided to follow the rigging method mentioned in previous posts on the huddleston using the coated wire but I cant figure out where the best spot to attach the front connection is. I have two hudds, one the wire is attached to the actual ring on the bait and the other is attached to the eye of the first hook. The first one seems more practical to me because if you only hook the stinger it wont rip out the first hook and damage the plastic. What do you guys think?

Blaine

I go to the eye of the first hook. If the hooks get dulled or you have any problems, you can replace the stinger rig easily that way. Lately I've been rigging up a bunch of stingers with different size hooks and stuff to have them ready. Like gammie 2/0, gammie 1/0, owner 2/0 owner 1/0.

Rob,
Maybe I'm missing something here but it sounds like you are setting up 4 different stinger rigs for 1 bait. Why? Oh and pictures would be appreciated or are they already in the gallery?
Tight lines,
Wade

What I mean is, I have stinger rigs set up with various hook sizes. There are only two hooks per rig. An example would be two 2/0 gammie hooks, or two 1/0 owner hooks per rig. If I feel like there is no chance of bending out a gammie hook, and the water is clear, then I'll use gammies. If the water is off color, or I'm night fishing, or I expect to bounce bottom a lot (potentially dulling the hooks) then I'll use owners.

I have posted pictures of this rig in the past, here is a post with an example:

http://www.calfishing.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=5&topic_id=5088&mesg_id=5096&page=

Thanks! I can understand the need for a lighter wire hook that can be bent out, and a heavier wire hook when you can get away with it. Do you feel that the sizes are making that big of a difference in your snag-up and catch ratios to justify 4 different rigs or are you still just experimenting to find the optimum 2? As I see it you've got
1)Heavy/Big for open water 2)Heavy/Small for moderately open water with lightweight snags that break 3)Light/Big for moderately open water with heavyweight snags that require bend-out hooks and 4)Light/Small for heavy cover and heavyweight snags.
Tight lines,
Wade

Right now it's a work in progress for me. I'm playing with a number of factors with stinger hooks. Thing like:

how fast does it get dulled if it hits the bottom?
how well does it get bit?
does hook size matter?
does it matter if I paint the hooks grey, silver or white?
does it matter if I just paint the wire any of those colors?
does it matter if I smear megastrike on the hookpoints?

There are two reasons why I won't use gammie hooks on my baits in certain situations:

One is because they can get bent out on big fish. I've seen it happen and it scares me. Consider that how hard a bass fights is very dependent on water temperature. When the water is warm, bass jump and fight and twist like crazy. When the water is cold, bass tend to not fight very much at all. I caught a few 9-10lb fish last month that went in the net in 10 or 15 seconds on gammie hooks. That same fish in July might be able to bend my hook out.

The other thing with gammies is that they dull very very easily if they hit rock or gravel bottom. If I was sponsored by gammie and got them by the 25 pack I wouldn't care, but it's just impractical for my to change stinger rigs 10 times a day.

There are two reasons I don't like Owner hooks:

One is because they only come in shiny black and shiny nickel. This to me is purely marketing. Hooks should not be shiny and they they should not be jet black or metallic silver. It's just retarded when you actually think about it.

The second reason is because they are so thick. The thickness increases the visibility to the fish.

Another note to add here... I have switched completely to Owner Hyperwire split rings on all my baits. I've had too many split ring issues in the past and I'm through with that. Owner Hyperwire's are the best split ring on the market right now period. They are super strong and they maintain their shape with a very minimal gap in the wire even after they are put over a wide eyelet.

So as you can see, there's a lot of considerations. If you're serious about it, you have to consider every single detail of you tackle like this because it will make a difference at some point. You can poo-poo this kind of stuff but it'll bite you in the ass at some point, believe me.

Basically I'm hearing that you're still experimenting and will probably settle on 1 or 2 variations when you find them. I like that you're doing all of that. I'll never poopoo experimentation for the sake of higher hook-up rates down the road. However, I try to keep my number of variables down so I can keep track of the differences, and maintain a high degree of confidence. Keep up the good work!
Tight lines,
Wade

I could'nt agree more with the hook and ring recommendations. I'm sure many of you have had to deal with the strong feelings of frustration that comes with the loss of a big fish due to a tackle malfunction. Man that hurts. There's definitely a degree of confidence lost when I'm fishing and I know I have a potential point of failure in any part of my tackle.

JerryG