Can I blame it on a bluntish hook? (The MegaBass Sleeper Craw is such a clever lure, but I do think the hooks could be better)

A couple of days ago I got round to scratching an itch that has been niggling away at me for a while. I can see an interesting bit of ground way off in the distance from an estuary spot I have been fishing, but a previous (long) walk had not opened up a successful way down. So I went back, determined to find the way. And I did. It’s so out of the way and not where one might expect to go looking for bass that I will be gobsmacked if I ever see another angler near the place………………

Anyway, I had no idea if this area might hold a few fish or when it might or might not fish in a typical tidal cycle, so I chose to try and find a way down around half way down the ebb tide on what was a bigger tide than I would usually prefer for an estuary session. Once I eventually managed to get down to the banks of the estuary - follow Storm and hope that if she can get down then so can I! - I made sure to keep right back from the water’s edge and have a good look for any signs of moving fish.

And sure enough as my eyes adjusted I started to see some big mullet moving around in some very shallow water - and if there are mullet around then I fancy there being a few bass as well. I crept down a touch closer to the water and managed to spot more good mullet mooching around, with a bunch of them looking around the 5lb mark at least. I grabbed a MegaBass Sleeper Craw from one of those HTO Double Latch Box 20.5cm lure boxes I was talking about the other day, and clipped it on.

A while later and the current is starting to slow right down and I am seeing more and more signs of decent mullet moving around in the shallows, often with their tails and dorsal fins right out of the water as they continue to almost spook themselves. Of course I am looking to see if I can see any of those telltale spiky dorsal fins, but to be honest the angle of the light is making it very hard to see a huge amount unless the fish are very close in and almost motionless.

Then out of the blue and when I am not far off lifting the crab imitation lure out of the water to cast again, a bass that I’d have given as easily 6lb+ charged in after my lure, very nearly engulfed it, but then suddenly turned away. Either the fish saw me and didn’t like what it saw, or else it shied off hitting the lure because it would have literally beached itself if it had done so. My heart skipped a few beats as you can imagine, indeed I woke up this morning with such a strong mental image of that dark back on the fish rushing in at my lure. First time at a brand new mark and the signs are good. Not that good for my heart I might add, but you can’t have it all!

I fished on for a while then went for a wander. I found a nice little patch of bladderwrack and in the murkier water I saw movement from a fish that looked a bit different to how you’d expect a mullet to do its thing. Out went the Sleeper Craw beyond the fish movement, and as I bumped the lure gently back I suddenly got that hard hit which I then gave a tiny bit of time and slack to before hitting the fish on the next hard bump. My rod tip goes over, it bangs a couple of times but I don’t think it’s a particularly big bass, then everything suddenly goes horribly slack.

We all know that not all fish are going to stick, but I am pretty sure I did everything right and I’d have expected to properly connect with that bass. One thing I am very aware of with these very clever (but not cheap!) MegaBass Sleeper Craw lures is that the hooks aren’t exactly great - yes, I know they were originally designed for freshwater fishing - and that the shape of the actual lure doesn’t make for particularly easy sharpening (come on, how many of you ever sharpen your treble and single hooks for lure fishing?). I do I might add, and I make sure to regularly sharpen the single hooks on the few Sleeper Craws that I own. Do yourself a favour and buy a hook sharpener!

So I naturally checked the hookpoint on the lure which didn’t stick into that bass, and it wasn’t very sharp at all. I know that I sharpen these lures on a regular basis, but I guess that the one I happened to pick out of my lure box the other day needed some touching up again and I had bloody missed it. I don’t actually know whether the less than ideal hookpoint was the cause of my dropped bass, but one naturally looks for a reason. What I do know is that the various weedless jig heads I am using with some of the Z-Man soft plastics have better hookpoints from the off, and the hookpoints on these jig heads are much easier to keep properly sharp. I do love how easy it is to clip on a ready to fish crab imitation lure with the MegaBass Sleeper Craw, but the quality of the hooks has got me thinking a bit………………

Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.