Assist Hooks on Lures?

My wife brought back some fishing magazines from her work trip to the USA, and this article caught my eye. Plugs and lures sometimes fail to hook up on larger fish, and can come out due to leverage from the rigid lure pulling standard trebles free. This article recommends trying Assist hooks, traditionally used on jigs, as a plug and lure hook. The flexible link resolves the leverage problem and the wide gape hook will do a better job of hooking and holding larger fish. Judging from the state of that orange lure in the picture, it appears to work. To rig a lure with an assist hook, remove all the trebles and make up a short link from a wide gape hook to a split ring, with braid or twisted wire. Let the hook trail at the tail of the lure. Protect the knots or crimps with shrink tube and you are set to go. Click on the picture for a better look.

It's often not what you think...

It's not what actually happens, its the circumstances in which they happen that affect our judgement. Sorry if that sounds heavy, but here's what I mean. Coming back from a day fishing with Arron in Salar, we motored into the marina at tickover speed, did the usual curve into the berth and put the engine into reverse to stop the boat just by the pontoon. Like I have done for the last 15 years - only this time the engine went dead. Salar bumped into the pontoon but luckily no damage done. We tied up and tried to find out what went wrong. She started easily, but as soon as I put her into gear she stalled. Hmmm, gearbox problem, or maybe the in-gear selector switch was shorting? Time to get Scott the engineer to have a look.

A few days later I got a call from Scott. In his best Kiwi he says "You've got about a metre of fishing net round yer prop mate, jammed tight and the prop won't move". Well there you are, obvious now. If the engine had cut suddenly at sea, I would have looked at the prop immediately as a floating rope or net would be the most likely cause. But two feet from my berth? Not the first thing to spring to mind anyway. Lesson learned - cover all options before attempting a diagnosis!