How To: Use a jerkbait stinger hook for bass fishing

If you want to catch more bass this spring, then you need to fish soft plastic jerk baits. They drive bass wild. Wade Bourne, host of Wade's World on MyOutdoorTV, shows you how to use a jerkbait stinger hook.

Soft plastic jerkbaits are great lures for catching bass in shallow water in the spring. These lures have a darting/pausing action that bass find hard to resist.

However, some anglers have trouble getting good hooksets with soft plastic jerkbaits. These baits are normally rigged weedless with one hook, and when an angler jerks, if the hook point misses its target, the bait is yanked out of the fish's mouth.

However, anglers can dramatically increase their percentage of good hooksets with these lures by rigging a treble "stinger" hook onto the main hook. Here's how to do it.

Run the point of the main hook into the head of the bait approximately a quarter-inch, then slide the bait up the shank of the hook to the eye. Turn the point so it can be inserted into the belly of the lure Texas-style. However, before doing this, attach a small treble hook by running the point of the main hook through the eye of the treble and sliding the treble up the shank of the main hook. Then insert the point of the main hook into the body of the bait Texas-style (weedless). Now the treble is swinging freely on the hook shank under the belly of the lure.

Last, insert one hook of the treble into the lure's belly to fix the treble in place.

Rigging in this manner won't affect the bait's appearance and action, but it will provide much greater hooking power when a fish strikes. Instead of one hook point, now there are four, and this means a higher hooking percentage and more fish brought to the boat.