Capt. Mark Munson doesn’t even carry plastics on his boat.
Having spent so much time with the fragile crustaceans, Munson has figured out hooking the shrimp a certain way is far superior to other methods.
“I like to hook them through the tail,” he said.
With a single live shrimp being worth what a candy bar was in the 1990s, any trick to make them survive on the hook for a greater duration of time is a definite bonus.
Munson said hooking them through the tail does just that.
“I think they last longer and don’t fall off as easily, especially when you’re Carolina-rigging,” he said. “When you hook them in the head and you’re dragging them, their noses dig into the ground, and it rips their faces.”
He also believes hooking a shrimp through the tail gives it a more natural presentation.
“When a shrimp pops, it pops backward, so when you twitch him, it looks like he is jumping backward, not forward,” Munson said.
He also uses treble hooks because be believes they are more efficient at hooking fish than other styles of hooks.
But they can also be dangerous.
“You have to be more careful with them on the boat,” Munson said. “An extra two hooks on there makes a big difference when you are fishing with (inexperienced fishermen).”
The extra two hooks, however, seem to give less of a chance of a fish stealing your money without paying the ultimate price.
Munson said he does switch hook styles, though, when the little trout come out to play.
“If we get into small fish and you have mixed fish in there that aren’t keepers, I’ll switch to khale hooks because the treble hooks do a lot of damage to the small trout that you are throwing back,” he said. “The mortality rate is horrible. A khale hook is a lot more gentle on them, as far as hooking them in the corner of the mouth and them being alive again when you throw them back.”
