Noah Bell displays his first largemouth bass, taken on an open-hook jig worm combo.  Jeff Knapp/Special to the Eagle

The look of excitement on Noah’s face reminded me of why I’m blessed to do what I do. The largemouth bass on the end of his line wasn’t overly large, just a plump 13-incher. But it was his first ever.

Later that morning, which took place last week on Keystone Lake, he took his first smallmouth, culminating the four-hour trip with several other bass of both colors. Experiences I was fortunate to share along with his uncle, Jonathan, who had arranged the outing.

All of Noah’s bass came on a finesse-sized worm — more specifically a Z-Man Hula Stickz. It’s a 4-inch soft bait with a worm profile carried through most of its body, terminating with a short broom-like tail similar to a tube bait.

Over the years I’ve found Keystone bass, on many days, to be fond of the Hula Stickz, but I strongly suspect there are other profiles they like as much. Perhaps the bigger component to the presentation is it was fished on a light, open-hook jighead. I’d chosen this option, as opposed to a weedless Texas-style rigging, to make it easier for the young, inexperienced angler to achieve a solid hookset.

As anglers, we have a wide variety of hook styles to choose from. Picking which one fits the bill is often a matter of circumstances, such as the species being pursued or the type of habitat being fished.

Using bass as an example, while an open jighead was ideal for someone not accustomed to bites and required hooksets, I’d have used the same setup in that situation.

We were fishing along the edge of a submerged weedbed. The weeds were somewhat sparse, up only a few feet (at most) from the surrounding lake bottom. It was likely any bass looking to strike the bait would do so on its initial drop, before it touched down on bottom or within the weeds.

Since it was being fished on a light jighead of only ⅛ ounce, the drop rate was slow, giving any bass in the area a chance to see its slow descent in the clear water and intercept it. And when it did touch bottom, the weed growth was low and thin, allowing the lure to be retrieved weed free much of the time.

Had we been fishing deeper into the weedbed, where the vegetation was higher and thicker, an open jighead would not have been a good choice. The fish would have had much less time to strike the lure, and it would have frequently fouled in the weeds. In this case, a soft plastic bait fished on a weedless rig like a Texas rig (a bullet-shaped slip sinker along with an offset worm hook) would have provided a more efficient option.

Another scenario is fishing around heavy cover such as flooded brush or shoreline laydowns. In this case, any hooked bass will need to be pulled quickly away from the cover. A heavy line is needed along with a correspondingly stout rod. That’s why worm hooks are available in heavier gauges, to withstand the energy needed to handle a big fish in this situation.

The same applies to skirted flippin’ jigs. Lighter wire jig hooks are OK when fishing light cover or open water and make hooking fish easier. But when working heavier cover, it’s wise to go with stronger hooks so they don’t bend out due to the force being applied.

Likewise, when fishing a drop shot rig, where the sinker is on the end of the line and the hook 1-2 feet above, in deeper water a thin, finesse-style hook is often appropriate. This style of fishing is often removed from snaggy cover, the bait option being subtle. Here, a heavier hook would kill the action of the soft plastic bait.

These are just a few of the basic examples of hooks in relation to bass fishing. There are many more, along with consideration of weighting options that influence how a bait is presented.

Jeff Knapp is an outdoors columnist for the Butler Eagle