Palms Alexandra
Much of this report is taken from the 7-5-19 Trip Report
The
Palms Alexandra is a sinking minnow lure that is unique in one important
respect. It comes with two single hooks rather than two treble hooks.
One day while I was fishing a regular Japanese sinking minnow lure, a
medium-sized trout managed to get four hooks in his mouth - two from the
front treble and two from the rear treble.
Four hooks in its mouth - two from the front treble and two from the rear treble.It took me way too long to get all the hooks out of the poor fish. I was staying at a motel with no way to cook it, so I couldn't keep it. It swam away, but it probably didn't survive. From then on, I have replaced the treble hooks on all my lures with single hooks, and when possible, have just bought single-hook lures to begin with.
Palms AlexandraThere are many Japanese minnow lures that come with single hooks rather than trebles, but the Palms Alexandra is the only one I know of that is designed for fishing in streams. The minnow lures designed for fishing in Areas (private pay-to-fish lakes), all of which have single hooks, have longer bills and are diving plugs - not what you would want for fishing mountain streams.
Even small bank eddies hold fishI have known for some time that casting into small bank eddies - often just open spaces between rocks - and then retrieving into the main part of the stream (which Angler Saito so often does) is very productive. I have found it worked far better with a minnow plug than with a spinner or spoon, though. When cast into shallow water along shore, small, dense metal lures fall to the bottom and get stuck between rocks too often. If you can start reeling the instant the lure hits the water you will save lures. The time it takes to close the bail on a spinning reel before reeling can be too long, though. It has to be instantaneous. Perhaps I've been lucky, but minnow plugs - even sinking minnows- with single hooks have never gotten stuck between rocks.
Hooked on the front hook.When I decided a couple years ago to no longer fish with treble hooks, I replaced the trebles on my plugs with single hooks. I removed the front treble and replaced the rear one with a C'ultiva SBL-55M. I now think that was a mistake. On my 7-5-19 trip, I caught enough fish with the Alexandra AX50 to lose count (I usually lose count somewhere between five and ten fish). Most were hooked on the front hook, not the rear hook. If you are fishing in one of the few places that require a single barbless hook, it would probably be better to leave the front hook and remove the rear hook. If where you fish doesn't have that regulation, leave both single hooks in place.
Header photo: Tenryu Rayz RZ4102B-UL, Shimano Calcutta Conquest BFSHG ('17)
Warning:
The hooks are sharp.
The coffee's hot.
The fish are slippery when wet.