• You can pre-rig baits with this hook because the eye of the hook is always exposed, with other style hooks you have to burry the eye of the hook into the soft plastic which doesn’t allow for pre-rigging. Night fisherman in particular appreciate the pre-rigging capability as it can be a project threading soft plastics in the dark where visibility is limited

• . Because of the unique bend near the eye of the hook you can better penetrate thick soft plastics. The result is a better hookset.

• RIGGING TUBE BAITS:

  Copperhead hooks are also great for rigging soft plastic tube baits. The trick is to break off a small piece of plastic worm. Stuff the worm piece into the head of the tube bait. This will allow you to screw the coil device on the eye of the hook into the head of your tube bait.
  
   

  WEIGHTING YOUR COPPERHEAD

  There is a way to add weight to the shank of a twitch shad hook. A 1/16 ounce bullet head sinker works best. First thread a toothpick through the hollow portion of the weight. Place the weights into a vice and lightly tighten. A hacksaw is then used to cut a groove the length of the weight to the center of the sinker, remove the tooth pick and you have split-bullet-weight that can be squeezed on the shank of the hook. Squeeze the sinker on the hook just above the bend of the gap. I recommend using a 4/0 hook and 4" Rhino RL twitch shad. You’ll be impressed the action this combination produces.
  
   

  FEBRUARY’S FANTASTIC FISHING

  Now that you know what to use and how to rig it, it’s time to put it to work. The Intracoastal Waterway is the place to be this month with your soft plastic twitch baits. The ideal scenario would be to find a day with a low tide around 9 a.m., refer to your Florida Sportsman Fishing planner and you’ll find Feb. 10 to be a good day to take the day off and go fishing. The 9 a.m. low tide will allow the exposed mud flats ample time to heat up, Start working your way into any of the skinny water creeks in the ICW and you should see plenty of redfish cruising the shallows. They’ll be in the shallowest available water and chances are they will feed if you can sneak up on them presenting your soft plastic in an obtrusive manner.

Striped bass are also a possibility this month. Don’t overlook soft plastics for striped bass either. Stripers will eagerly take a soft plastic twitch bait. The problem is that stripers are usually found close to heavy cover such as tight to dock and bridge pilings. The light weight twitch baits require light line in order to cast light line is a big no-no for hard fighting fish close to pilings. Weighted copperhead would be the best choice, a braided line such as 10-20 PowerPro line would also be a good idea. Spotted Seatrout are also a good option in February, they seem to be the most dependable species to catch year round here in Jacksonville. The fish should be tightly schooled this month, find 1 and you’re likely to load the boat, hopefully you will elect to release a few.

Black Bass are likely to begin bedding this month as well, if we can get a week of warm weather the largemouth will likely head for the shallows to spawn. Soft plastics twitch bads like discussed above a great choice for bedding bass. A 4" bait like the Rhino twitch shad a small weedless tube bait or weighted twitch bait should all result in a heck of a lot better hook set than the traditional plastic worm. If you’re bed fishing tidal waters like I often do it’s important to remember that the fish won’t be bedding up against the bank. The bass beds should be out from the bank where the water ends at low tide. The bass won’t bead in an area that is exposed at low tide. So low tide is the best opportunity to locate bass beds on tidal waters. Bedding bass should absolutely be released, so they can continue to repopulate our waters.