Palm Beach Gardens, FL – The offset wide gap hook equates with bass fishing more than any other piece of terminal tackle. Designed to be dressed with a soft plastic offering, and presented in often nasty, bass-concealing cover, the offset wide gap hook is an essential component in every bass angler’s tackle arsenal.
Although essential, every angler that has cast a topwater frog towards the impenetrable slop or dragged a Carolina-rigged lizard through sticky-stumps is familiar with the hazards and frustrations that accompany such presentations.
First, fishing through heavy cover – not to mention the simple cast-retrieve sequence - can easily transform an intricately rigged soft plastic, hook and weight combination into a line twisting, spinning wad of plastic and steel. Second, once a bass is tempted into striking, fish often try to leverage the weight of the lure or use weeds, wood, or other aquatic debris to work the hook out of its jaw, too often resulting in an early escape. Indeed, these persistent problems are associated with all traditional hook styles, largely do to the inherent pivot point created by the classic J-shape design.
Trapper Tackle has a patented solution that reduces the frustration and time spent re-rigging baits and abates the anguish of losing fish after the hook set.
Enter Trapperâs Offset Wide Gap, X Heavy Hook, a revolutionary piece of terminal tackle that addresses the two most common problems faced by anglers.
Exquisite engineering and years of field-driven refinement have blended the most valuable features of the traditional offset wide gap hook with the patent-protected Trapper Box, a unique pair of right angle bends at the base of the hook shank that dramatically improves the retention of both rigged baits and hooked fish.
Couple the advantages of the Trapper Box with center line positioning to enhance hook bite penetration and weedless performance, as well as a 65o bend below the eye for more bait holding power, and you have created the one tool that every angler needs: a Trapper Hook they can depend on when the trip, or tournament, is on the line.
Trapper Hook pro Vince Hurtado, a veteran of the Bassmaster Elite circuit, offers his perspectives on the Offset Wide Gap, X Heavy Trapper Hook: “This is the hook that I turn to when fishing aggressively around vegetation or when fishing stained or murky waters. This is also a great hook for flipping and pitching or anytime you’re using braid and want a hook that can handle an aggressive hook set on a medium heavy or heavy rod.”
Hurtado, an aficionado of the California Delta, continues: “The biggest difference that I notice when using Trapper Hooks is what happens after the hook set. The hook doesn’t seem to rotate or move even when fish are jumping, and every fish that comes to the boat is pinned in the Trapper Box. That means more fish end up on the scales at the end of my tournament day.”
Whether you fish competitively or just for fun, the ICAST Best-in-Show award winning Trapper Hook design will put more smiles on faces and more fish in the boat. Anglers will find the Offset Wide Gap, X Heavy Hook in 3/0, 4/0 and 5/0 sizes, in packs of 4 or 5 (MSRP $4.99) and in Pro Packs of 25 (MSRP $23.19-$27.99), in tackle shops and sporting goods stores across the country, with availability in December 2016. Free samples and more information available at TrapperTackle.com.
