Rapala Hooks

[Fisherman]

I have been reading various articles on the quality of the hooks supplied with Rapala lures. I personally have not found the need to upgrade. I found it surprising how many people find the hooks problematic. at different website reviews, the general consesus was to throw the hooks out and install aftermarket ones.(mustad etc.) Has anyone found this to be an area of concern? Super Shad Rap was a favorite target of this thinking.
I do change my hooks when required but I have yet to find a retailer that carries Rapala Hooks, treble or otherwise. Are they that hard to find?

[Fishooked]

I've never had a problem with the 'stock' hooks that come on Rapala lures; personally I think they are sharp as hell! (My fingers can attest the that).

Who has the time to sit there with a split ring plier and replace all those hooks? No one with kids, I can assure you that, lol...

I have yet to see stores stocking Rapala hooks in earnest, but based on their 2004 Catalog they have a HUGE array of hooks available. Haven't seen any here in NJ though...

[wallcat]

I've never found the hooks to be a problem and in fact like them more than most. Additionally, I have found some replacement hooks for the Rapala lures and have added a few packs to the collection but they are difficult to find. The newer Rapala's with VMC seem to be particularly good hooks.

Shane

[Bob]

After watching an in-fisherman special a number of years ago, and noticing that i was not landing enough of the fish that I hooked trolling, I replaced the rear treble with a "triple grip" treble.
as a result of doing this i began to pay attention to how good the fish were hooked by the "triple grips". imagine my dismay when I found that virtually all my walleyes were being hooked on the front treble. I immediately changed the triple grip hooks from the rear to the front. i went from landing 70-80 percent of the fish that hit the lure to 95%.
i learned that walleyes strike their prey from underneath and the front so that when you're replacing hooks for walleyes the rear treble is unimportant.
Now i know someone is going to tell me about the walleye that they caught on the rear hook and blah , blah, blah, and so forth. But take my word for it, out side of tournament walleye fisherman, very few people troll for walleyes as much as I do, and I notice all the little things, such as how they're hooked.
The In-fisherman is a great magazine and I learned a lot from them, but they got it wrong about replacing the rear treble.
In summation, rapala hooks are very good, but can be improved upon.

[wallcat]

Bob,

Thanks for the info. I would like to add that I catch most of my walleyes on the back treble blah blah blah and therefore never change the front one. Just kidding. I'm going to pay more attention to the ratio of front hook/back hook walleyes I pick off when trolling. If I had to guess based on my past I would say about 50/50 is the current hookup. I wonder too if water clarity dicatates which part of the bait the walleye focus' on. Just a thought. Mostly stained waters for me, how about you?

Shane

P.s. Welcome to the board.