I’m a little embarrassed to ask this question because I have been fishing in the BW for the last 15 years and have caught my share of walleye with a slip bobble, #6 red hook and a leech. I have always hooked the leech through the “sucker” end. I was reading something the other day that stated the “head” end of the leech is opposite the sucker end. Have I been hooking them wrong all these years??!! mk
I'll throw another variable into the conversation. I cannot remember if TGO told me or if I heard it on KFAN outdoors but someone mentioned hooking a leech right through the middle of the body when suspended below a bobber. This method allows the leech to hang horizontal.
As far as which end is the head I also think it's the small end which means I also have been hooking them wrong when on a jig or trolling but there's a ton of walleyes that didn't seem to care.
"Leave it as it is.....The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it." Theodore Roosevelt
There are suckers at both ends, but yes, the larger sucker is at the posterior (anal) end.
On the other hand, I doubt that there ever was a fish that thought "Hey, that leech is swimming backwards!"
"Said one of these men, long past seventy years of age: 'I could carry, paddle, walk and sing with any man I ever saw. I have been twenty-four years a canoe man, and forty-one years in service; no portage was ever too long for me. Fifty songs could I sing. I have saved the lives of ten voyageurs. Have had twelve wives and six running dogs. I spent all my money in pleasure. Were I young again, I should spend my life the same way over. There is no life so happy as a voyageur's life!'"
They use the butt as a foot, so it's easy to let them anchor on your thumbnail so they're under a little bit more control while they're getting hooked. The back end of the body is also a lot meatier, so when you butt-hook them, they last longer. One time I was on a hot bite using spinner rigs on bottom bouncers and it seemed like the more chewed up the leech was, the faster you got another hit.
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