Taking the "rusty hook" smell off of your bass/steelhead plugs

C
cobias
0
I have had some old hotshots and plugs from my dad and grampa that had the bronze style hooks on them. If you dont already know....when bronze rusts/oxidizes it puts off a foul odor that smells like cat urine. If you ever smell the the inside of an old tacklebox, youll know that smell. I knew that the smell would put off fish so i just bought my own plugs and replaced the hooks with owner black anodized trebles. Not wanting the older plugs to go to waste, i removed the hooks, tried and tried to get that funk off of them...to no avail. Then i figured out that coating them with clear spray laqer might work...and it did. Not only did it seal off the smell but it made the plugs look like new ! Im convinced that scent ( second only to presentation ) is very important in catching fish. As a tip here, i would stay away from bronze hooks or at least if you use them, make sure they are dry after every trip. And using Z-rust strips in your tackle box helps too.
 
You probably should have just changed the hooks on the old plugs since you removed them. Won't the lacquer make the hooks dull? If they are coated they can't possibly be as sharp as a regular hook.
 
cobias said:
Not wanting the older plugs to go to waste, i removed the hooks . . . Then i figured out that coating them with clear spray laqer might work. . . . it made the plugs look like new !
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Sounds to me like he actually lacquered the plugs, and not the hook itself. I am assuming he replaced the hooks with the new black anodized ones.
 
Yes i lacqered the the plugs not the hooks. The old rusy bronze hooks went in the garbage. I imagine you could paint bronze hooks with black heavy duty stove or engine paint. And also im not knocking bronze hooks...some of my newer small plugs have bronze hooks for now. Also bronze hooks sharpen up real easy and if you break a fish off, a fishs blood eats up bronze very fast and they stand a better chance of living. But like i said, if they rust at all they reek bad.
 
oops my bad, must have read it wrong. I couldn't figure out why the heck you would lacquer the hooks. One thing to keep in mind if you do decide to paint some, the coating will drastically increase the length of time the hook would take to rust if broken OFF in a fishes mouth.
 
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