Kat-a-Log

[katfish]

Sean

I most often use a 2 oz egg sinker. I have a few 3 and 4 oz eggs that I
change to when I have large active baits. I may change to
pyramid sinkers in rivers with mud/sand bottom.

Magis switched to pyramids so he could get a better idea of what
a flathead was doing after it picked up a bait. It made his decision
of when to set the hook easier.

I have pretty much settled on 5/0 Kahle hooks. They seem to be
the smallest hook that will do what I want. Smaller hooks and
sinkers mean less stress on hooked baits. I want my baits to
stay healthy and active and this helps especially in the warmer
months. Several models of Kahles are made up to 10/0 including
the King Kahles.

Several years back the foreman at Wright-McGill would notify me
when they made kahles on special runs. Largest standard Kahles
at that time was 6/0 but they tooled up for special orders and
ran past their production order till wire ran out on the dies.
I could get Kahles up to 10/0 but it meant buying 2-3000 hooks
at a time. While we were experimenting with sizes we bought a
couple of orders and shared the hooks with other flathead
fishermen.

I actually first tried Kahle hooks as a boy on trotlines. They
were developed for English longliners and were sold as
English style hooks. I think I bought them from Memphis
Net and twine back then. That was probably the 1960s equivelent of
circle hooks

Anyway I forgot about them for 20 years till Roy hoops showed
me Kahles and I tried them and found that lot of what I thought
were flathead turned out to be channel cats. The big J hooks I
was using were to big to hook the channel cats.

I experimented several years to understand which size would perform
the best for me. I like larger gaps for their hooking ability. As hook
size goes up, so does wire size and hook weight. I felt the vibrations
of struggling bait was very important so started looking to find
the smallest lightest hook that would still set well in big flathead.
I tried many styles and coatings. The bronze coated kahles are
probably most practical and inexpensive and available. Mike found
the BK rust resistent coating and we were very impressed at
their penetration.

I still keep an open mind for rigging options and experiment from time
to time. Flathead are often far between so changes take lots of time
to prove out.
_________________
Catchabiggun,
Robby