I’ve been whipping the Shimano Shallow Assassin for the last few months, and it’s never been bolo’d. Since I’ve been been fishing shallow water, most of the fish have been kaku, and Shallow Assassin’s plastic body is nicked up but still water tight. On the last outing, in rough water, the only thing that bit was a medium sized nunu (trumpetfish), and I released the slimy buggah by holding the treble hook shank with Rapala 8.5″ stainless steel pliers and shook off the fish.

That hook opened up so it was time to replace it. The lure’s stock hooks are Owner 2X Size 5 treble hooks. They are thin and very sharp but a strong fish could bend them with the right leverage. Owner makes an excellent 4X treble hook but it’s 3 times more expensive than VMC’s 4X treble.

The VMC #4 – 4X hook was about the same gap size as the Owner #5 – 2X, but heavier because it was made thicker and stronger.

Fearing that heavier hooks would affect the nimble swimming action of the Shallow Assassin, I put on the smaller VMC #6 – 4X hooks instead and floated the lure in salt water to make sure it was still horizontally buoyant. I was able to reuse the stock split rings to ensure that no additional weight was added and that the hooks swung freely in lure’s eyelets. Since the split rings were small, I had to use a small-medium split ring pliers to change the hooks and made sure I didn’t stretch the ring out where it wouldn’t retain its original tight coil.

We’ve brought in the Perma Steel and the Red VMC 4X hooks because we couldn’t find the sizes we needed locally. Here’s a review the team did on the 4X treble hooks last year.

We’re also selling the spring loaded 8.5′ stainless steel long nose pliers. I’ve gotten tired of my carbon steel pliers rusting and staining the gear it touches. Been using the stainless steel pliers for a season now with no corrosion whatsoever.

Please check out the new items in the Store. Use the coupon code “ADDON” to subtract $1 off the shipping cost of each terminal tackle item (hooks, swivels, etc).