Love it when trying something different produces fish (smaller wide-gape weedless hooks with bigger belly weights)

This blog post is mainly about some specific hooks, but to get to them I need to explain how and why. I recently got hold of a few of the 7.5cm, 10cm and 12.5cm Berkley Powerbait Cull Shad paddletails (amended from earlier, I found a proper lure shop that sells them!), and before I headed off to Ireland for my guiding work the other day I had a bit of a play with them. I kinda like how you’re getting a good bit of body for not so much length, but that extra depth to the body of the Cull Shad requires a bit more thinking when it comes to rigging them.

10cm Berkley Cull Shad rigged on a Lure Factory Extra Wide Gape 3/0 weedless hook with the 10g belly weight

I don’t know, but I assume the Berkley USA people envisaged these things sitting on J-hook jig heads a lot of the time. Which I don’t really want for a lot of my fishing. I can probably get away with a regular weedless hook, but I’d prefer a wider gape - there’s a big slot cut right into the Cull Shad for rigging - and I’m not sure that those fantastic Decoy Violence Vj-36 weedless jig heads with their relatively narrow gape are best suited to something like the (deeper body) Cull Shads.

One of our lads had brought along some Berkley Cull Shads with him over in Ireland the other day. When we went for a wrasse fishing session where the water was incredibly clear and a bit deeper, he showed me how much the tail on the Berkley Cull Shad thumps away on the drop. I don’t know if you notice how much some paddletails are working on the drop and some aren’t - the Savage Gear Sandeel V2 J-hook and Weedless and the Fiiish Black Minnow for example are lethal on the drop - but of course you need a decent bit of weight on your jig head or weedless hook to promote a decent drop or sink rate which gets the tail thumping.

10cm Berkley Cull Shad rigged on a 3/0 3.5g BKK Titan Diver Worm Hook

So how am I going to help this along with something like the Cull Shad? I like it when a paddletail I am fishing with is thumping away on a straight retrieve, but if I can get some sink and draw goodness out of it as well when I am fishing slightly deeper water for bass and indeed pollack? Yes please. I really like the look of the 10cm Cull Shad especially, and around a 3/0 weedless hook fits it great. Those fantastic, much wider-gape BKK Titan Diver Worm Hooks sit nicely on these Cull Shads and are perfect for swimming them, but the belly weights on these hooks are not particularly heavy if you after that sink and draw option in deeper water as well.

The angler who came on our trips with the stunning little 4’’ Fat Stu paddletails - they have arrived - also had a load of weedless hooks with him which I hadn’t seen before from The Lure Factory on Ebay (where those Fat Stu paddletails come from). He kindly allowed me to rummage through his hook box and I saw plenty of wider-gape, smaller weedless hooks in there - with some much heavier belly weights as well. I took a bunch of iPhone photos of the various packets and ordered some when I got home - mainly 3/0 extra wide gape weedless hooks with belly weights from 2g right up to a substantial 10g, and 5g and 10g belly weights on the 5/0 extra wide gape weedless hooks. In Ireland I had rigged up various paddletails which I tend to fish with and was able to marry up hook sizes to lure bodies.

That lethal Savage Gear Collapser paddletail is another lure which needs a bit of thinking about how best to rig it. A relatively chunky/deep body for its size, but you need a relatively small weedless hook for the 14cm size of the lure because of the design. The Lure Factory Extra Wide Gape 3/0 weedless hook (it says only 2g-5g on the link, so scroll down the “Weight” bit and you will find the heavier stuff) fits the 14cm Collapser and the 10cm Cull Shad perfectly. And the Lure Factory Extra Wide Gape 3/0 weedless hook with the 10g belly weight really gets that Cull Shad dropping through the water column with the tail thumping away. This combination also happens to absolutely fly, as does this specific hook and belly weight on that 4’’ Fat Stu paddletail which one of our anglers does so well on back home in SW Scotland.

I went out for a quick session yesterday morning to a mark where I have done well by bumping a Savage Gear Ned Dragontail Slug rigged on the Seadra weedless jig head 2/0 7g in a run of current. The bottom is very snaggy in places and the water is a bit deeper, so I wondered if a bit of sink and draw with a paddletail might also work here. I know the Dragontail approach works but because my head is a particular way I basically have an urge to keep trying different approaches to see what works or does not work - and what might end producing more (or less!) fish. You will never know unless you give it a go.

10cm Berkley Cull Shad rigged on a Lure Factory Extra Wide Gape 3/0 weedless hook with the 10g belly weight

So I decided to fish with this 10cm Berkley Cull Shad rigged on the Lure Factory Extra Wide Gape 3/0 weedless hook with the 10g belly weight. About ten minutes into fishing and I got one of those utterly delightful and yelp-inducing sharp “taps” through my rod as the paddletail was dropping back towards the bottom (the sink) after I had lifted it up (the draw). Wind down and strike and I was connected to a rather feisty bass which I managed to land and get a few close up photos of because I could keep the fish in amongst the bladderwrack and water and cause it no harm. Nothing here is going to change the world, but thanks to a couple of anglers on our guided trips I learnt more about a specific lure on the drop and that I could get hold of wider-gape weedless hooks with heavier belly weights. Many thanks guys, damn right I keep my eyes and ears open all the time and learn from other anglers……………

10cm Berkley Cull Shad rigged on a Lure Factory Extra Wide Gape 3/0 weedless hook with the 10g belly weight

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Bass fishing, Fishing tackle, Lure fishingHenry GilbeyJuly 2026Comment