When using paddletails on jig heads, do you turn to a weedless or an exposed, J-hook version more?

I asked this question the other day on my Facebook and I got a lot of really interesting feedback. I have told you already that I am starting to do some work with the Savage Gear people on various bass fishing related items, so my asking here and on Facebook is a mixture of firstly and always most prevalently me being an obsessed bass lure angler with a bouncing brain, and secondly my role in starting to think about specific tackle related things with regards to this Savage Gear work. It’s invaluable for me to be able to “speak” to so many anglers on here and Facebook and I remain eternally grateful to those of you who kindly choose to engage with me.

I blogged about paddletails not long ago in fact, but recently I have got to thinking about using these versatile soft plastics on jig heads as we often do and the whole exposed J-hook or weedless options we might turn to. I wonder how many of you are in a similar boat to me in that a lot of your “paddletails on jig heads” thinking has been influenced by the killer and rather bloody clever Fiiish Black Minnow paddletail system? For sure I had fished with paddletails before this lure ever came along, but then the Black Minnow did arrive and I’ve now got a system of paddletail bodies and different jig heads and hooks - with the whole hook thing of course being based around a weedless design where you’ve got jig heads that match soft and supple lure bodies which can be fished through and over literally anything and the chances of losing a lure in and over all kinds of ground is now far less………………….

Which in turn I would suggest started to nudge more lure anglers into adopting the use of paddletails in more situations where they previously might not have before because of a more regular J-hook jig head design snagging up more easily - me included big time here. I am learning all the time about fishing with paddletails but without a doubt the weedless design of the Fiiish Black Minnow has helped my learning because I started to fish with paddletails in more varied bass fishing situations.

My doing some work with Savage Gear aside and I am never privy to sales figures, but as with the Black Minnow I am going to hazard a guess that the (J-hook) Savage Gear Sandeel is one of the most popular jig head rigged paddletails out there. I know there were some weedless jig heads for this lure which were floating around a few years ago and my lips have to be sealed on any future plans, but for the time being I am treating the SG Sandeel as an “exposed” paddletail, as in I never thought about turning to it for say bumping over a shallowish reef as I would a Black Minnow because of that exposed J-hook. Without a doubt I came to the SG Sandeel later than a lot of you here, but I do have some very strong memories of my mate Steve landing more than ten good bass right in front of me on one of those lemon back 12.5cm/23g versions over in Ireland in June 2014. When I’m outfished so comprehensively I’d have been a bit bloody stupid not to have had at least a little bit of increased interest in these lures and how to fish them better!

So these days I tend to find myself carrying Black Minnows and SG Sandeels in the same lure box, depending on where I am going fishing and what conditions I expect to face and so on. I like the different profiles and how the SG Sandeel I think goes out better in windier conditions and can be swum faster more effectively than the Black Minnow, and then the Black Minnow comes out especially when I want to work a paddletail over and through rough ground etc. Going on the bass I have caught myself and also seen caught over a number of years now, I happen to think the design of the Black Minnow with the Shore Head especially is particularly well suited to “bumping” down a run of current - as per the double figure bass above that my mate Nick landed right in front of me in Ireland for example.

If we forget about the actual types or makes of lures because you may well use different paddletails to me, what I am increasingly interested in is how much of a difference a J-hook or weedless hook design makes? Am I turning to a weedless design in some situations more because I like the actual lure rather than needing the weedless/tuck the hook point away feature, and do I sometimes not get a J-hook version out because I think it’s going to snag up all the time when in fact it might not as much as I think?

Do the different rigging designs result in more or less hooked fish? This is rather important of course! Have you ever had cause to wonder if you’re missing a few fish because of the hook point being more tucked away with a weedless design? I must admit that I haven’t, but then I put that down to how well the whole Black Minnow design works overall and me obviously fishing with it so much, and it goes without saying that an exposed J-hook design like the SG Sandeel hooks plenty of fish rather well indeed. Over the years I have heard of a few anglers saying that they hooked a fish on the Black Minnow only for things to suddenly go slack and they come in with the jig head minus hook and lure body, but I honestly can’t recall this happening to me. The way you put the (weedless) hook on is perhaps a little fiddly and if you don’t properly “set” the hook in that U bit it could work free I guess, but do it right and I think it’s a very clever design. I do also accept that learning to rig Black Minnows is not exactly easy and like many of you I am sure, yes, I suffered a few torn bodies to start with.

I am going to assume that because of how a weedless design works, a J-hook version is probably going to hook a slightly higher percentage of fish overall - I could be very wrong here by the way - but even if this correct we have to take into consideration the whole tucking the hook point away and being able to fish a paddletail on a jig head through and over ground which might in turn produce fish you might not previously have been able to catch, and so on and so on. Does that make sense?

At the end of the day I want and use both options. If I think about it I guess a J-hook version of the Black Minnow could be pretty useful for those situations when you simply don’t need to tuck the hookpoint away, and then a really good weedless version of a paddletail like the SG Sandeel would be handy as well. The argument against this is that both lures in their current configurations work really well anyway so what’s the point, but if anglers and indeed the fishing tackle trade thought like that then we would never move forward. Please do tell me what you think in the comments section below and my thanks in advance if you do so. There are a lot of anglers out there with a lot more knowledge and skill than me, but I’m in this situation and I am going to do all I can to help bring items of fishing tackle to market that work well. Lots more to come…………….

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