The design of a sickle hook makes them ideal for crappie fishing, as it seems to have a knack for firmly grabbing crappie in the roof of the mouth. These hooks supposedly tend to also hold onto crappie better during the fight than other options.
Most sickle hooks that I’ve purchased have extremely sharp points with a smaller barb than other hooks of similar size. Therefore, regardless of the unique 45 degree bend of this style hook, the sharpness and smaller barb most certainly helps get good penetration on the roof of a crappie’s mouth.
What Are Sickle Hooks
A Sickle Hook is a fish hook with a particular style of angled bend, usually about 45 degrees. This sharp, rather than rounded, bend is said to help accomplish 2 primary objectives. The angled bend helps keep live bait, such as minnows, from riding up the hook. More importantly, the angled bend supposedly helps to “lock” the fish onto the hook better than more common rounded hook designs. Aside from the differences in the bend of the hook, sickles are also typically sharper than standard crappie jig hooks and sometimes have a smaller barb than other hooks of a similar size.
Best Size Sickle Hooks For Crappie
I personally prefer either 1/16 oz. or 1/8 oz. jigs with either bronze or red sickle hooks. Both #2 and #4 hooks are about right for most crappie fishing applications.
Advantages Of Sickle Hooks
They Are Sharper
Typically, sickle hooks are going to be sharper right out of the package than your average crappie jig hook. They also seem to hold this sharpness longer than cheaper jig hooks. This sharpness, in combination with the generally smaller barbs, contributes to easier hook penetration.
Minnows Don’t Ride Up The Hook
If you fish with minnows, this style of hook will also work to keep your bait from riding up the hook. The angled bend lends itself to keeping the bait in the proper position.
Larger Hook Gaps
Sometimes you’ll get a slightly larger hook gap with a sickle which is often what you want with crappie. In fact many folks, myself included, bend normal crappie jig hooks out a tad bit. With sickle hooks you can sometimes forego having to bend your jig hooks.
Superior Fish Holding Ability
Anecdotal evidence seems to show that sickle style hooks do hold onto crappie better than round bend hooks. I’m not 100% convinced of this, but there are a lot of anglers that seem to swear by this fact. I do believe the superior sharpness of your typical sickle hook, as well as the smaller barb, likely does lend itself to an excellent hookset, which logically would hold onto a fish better.
Negatives Of Sickle Hooks For Crappie
Barbs Are Sometimes Smaller On Sickles
While it could also be argued to be a positive, one complaint for some sickle hooks is that they tend to have smaller barbs. Perhaps smaller barbs is a valid complaint for some applications. I’ll be honest, I’m fine with a smaller barb when it comes to crappie. I’ll take easier hook penetration over having to use a harder hookset to drive a larger barb home. With constant pressure while reeling in a fish, you shouldn’t have too much of an issue with small barbs pulling free anyway.
Can Crappie Hooks Be Too Sharp?
Yep, I actually did see this mentioned as a complaint about sickle hooks! Sickle hooks do tend to be extremely sharp and of higher overall quality than some cheaper crappie hooks. The complaint is that they can tend to hang up in brush easier, as the needle point will grab anything it comes into contact with.
While I do agree that it doesn’t necessarily take an extremely sharp hook to grab hold of the paper thin mouth of a crappie, that’s not really where you want to hook them. It’s much better to hook a crappie in the roof of the mouth which is where a sickle hook actually excels.
Can Crappie Hooks Be Too Strong?
With the added strength of this design comes a downside. It’s more difficult to bend a strong sickle hook in order to free it from a snag. So, you may end up going through more of them, depending on what kind of cover, if any, you fish. Going through more sickles is not a good thing, as they are more expensive than your average crappie jig hook. Using braided line can help with this issue. With braided fishing line you’re more likely to be able to bend a strong sickle hook free of snags.
Mr. Crappie Slab Slasher Sickle Hooks
Mr. Crappie Slab Slasher jig heads are high quality and well packaged. Both the 1/16 oz. and 1/8 oz. jig heads I purchased had the same sized black nickel #2 Eagle Claw hooks. The hooks are super sharp and the jig head colors are nice and bright with nicely painted eyes. These jig heads were also fairly priced. With Strike King being such a large brand, I presume these hooks are widely available. I think these are a good option if you’re in the market for crappie jigs with sickles.
Big T Slasher Sickle Jig Heads By Jenko Fishing
The Big T Slasher jig heads from Jenko Fishing also look pretty good. They have a neat little wire keeper designed into the jig head, as seen above. I have not seen a lot of sickle hooks on the market with that feature. I look forward to giving these a try this spring. However, I’m a little perturbed with them before I’ve even been able to use them. I purchased 2 packs to give them a try and I had to do a double take when I pulled them out of the box. One pack had 5 jig heads which is what I understood to be the count when I ordered. To my dismay, the other pack only had 3 jig heads! Upon further inspection, I can see how the jigs can easily fall out of the packaging. If you look carefully at the picture above, you can see that there is a clear path out of the top of the package. You can squeeze the package and easily shake them out without even opening it. A single staple would have fixed the problem. Contrast that with the Mr. Crappie jigs which are nearly packaged up airtight. Hopefully Jenko can fix this packaging flaw really quickly, because I know I can’t be the only one experiencing this issue.
Crappie Jig Hook Tips
No matter what style of jig hook you decide to go with, it’s best that you don’t over choke the hook with your bait. You need plenty of hook point exposed so that there is something to grab hold of the fish on the hookset. A common mistake some new anglers make is to put too large of a bait on too small of a hook. With todays meatier plastic jig bodies, you need a substantial hook in order to have enough hook exposed outside of the plastic. This is sometimes when I turn to the larger sickle hooks in my arsenal. You can accomplish the same by using larger standard jig hooks as well, or you can even bend the angle out a little bit if necessary.
Conclusion
To summarize, perhaps there are some legitimate advantages to using sickle hooks over traditional round bend crappie hooks. However, I personally believe any advantages are fairly minor. These minor differences probably don’t justify the higher price. But, then again, I’m cheap. I do think you tend to get a sharper and higher quality hook when you purchase sickles. So, there is that.
In the end, sickle hooks are probably more of an excuse to buy extra gear, rather than offering some significant benefit. I have to wonder if paying more for a premium hook gives some anglers added confidence in a jig. If so, I suppose that could actually be a huge advantage in the end. With all that said, I like and use both hook styles, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Good luck making your own decision!
Tight lines
Augustus Clay
If you found this article useful, you might like some of the other crappie articles on my site linked below.
How To Tie A Slip Float For Crappie
Best Brands Of Crappie Plastics
Best Colors Of Crappie Jigs And How To Choose
