Catfish Gear: Boss Kat BK84 Series Hooks
By Keith “Catfish” Sutton
A good catfish hook has one job: catch the fish and stay hooked up. That sounds simple, but when you’re dealing with big blues, flatheads and channel cats, the demands on a hook can be anything but simple.
That’s where the Boss Kat BK84 series comes in.
Featuring Daiichi technology, these hooks are made from 80 carbon steel, giving them the strength needed when a big catfish decides it’s time to make a run. The high-carbon-steel construction also helps the hook maintain a durable, long-lasting point—an important consideration when you’re fishing heavy tackle and big baits.
The BK84 is an offset circle hook made specifically with catfish anglers in mind. Its wide gap and deep belly give you plenty of room for big live or chunk baits without burying the hook point. That’s especially handy when you’re using the kind of bait required to tempt trophy-class cats.
And that bait-holding ability doesn’t come at the expense of hook penetration. The BK84 features a chemically sharpened, needle-sharp point designed for quick penetration. The offset point helps the hook rotate into position when a fish takes the bait and moves off, promoting a solid connection in the corner of the mouth.
That’s one of the big advantages of a well-designed circle hook. Rather than setting the hook with a hard swing, the angler lets the fish take the bait and loads the rod as the fish moves away. The hook does the work of turning and finding its home.
Of course, none of that matters if the hook bends when a big catfish puts the pressure on. The BK84 is built for those situations, with heavy-duty high-carbon steel construction designed to resist bending under extreme pressure.
The Boss Kat hooks also have an attention-getting Dead Red, or Boss Red, finish. The specialized red color triggers a feeding response in fish. Whether the color makes a difference in every situation is something anglers can debate, but there’s no debating that the red finish gives these hooks a distinctive look.
The BK84 is versatile enough for several popular catfishing presentations. Use them with live bait, cut-bait or stinkbait when targeting channel cats, blues or flatheads. The wide gap is particularly useful when you’re putting a large piece of bait on the hook and still want plenty of hook point exposed.
Boss Kat offers the BK84 in four sizes: 1/0, 3/0, 5/0 and 8/0. Packages contain five hooks in 1/0, three in 3/0, three in 5/0 and two in 8/0.
For catfish anglers, terminal tackle is where the rubber meets the road—or, more accurately, where the hook meets the catfish. The Boss Kat BK84 combines a sharp offset circle-hook point, wide bait-friendly gap and heavy-duty carbon-steel construction in a package designed for serious catfishing.
When a big cat finally decides to eat, you want to be thinking about fighting the fish, not wondering whether your hook is up to the job. Boss Kat’s BK84 series lets you do just that.
(Keith “Catfish” Sutton is the editor of CatfishNOW and its sister publication, CrappieNOW.)
