I bought a black widow bite from my Pro Shop about 2 months ago and it hooked like crazy. But now my dry lane ball is hooking more than my bite. It just lost all of its hook out of nowhere. How can I get the hook back?

Not much to say here besides clean, clean, clean! Once the ball gets dirty and oily, the coverstock loses its tackiness. You need to restore that tackiness. I clean my stuff every time I go bowling. I have much older equipment and they still hook great.

As for the cleaning, if you do some searches on here, you'll find a lot of info on some different ideas. For after bowling, I use an Ebonite cleaner, bought a big bottle around 3 years ago, and I still have a good bit left. In your case, you need to get deeper into that ball. I'd recommend the hot water/dish detergent bath described on MoRich's site, I did it once and it worked really good to get out the real deep stuff. If that doesn't cut it, I'd take it to the Pro Shop and have them rejuvenate the ball. Personally, I'd stay away from any methods that involve possible excessive heat, you don't want the core separating from the coverstock.

Hope this helps.

Mark

You need to clean your bowling balls after each use. Now to the matter at hand. You need your BW bite rejuvenated/baked. The BW solid and Bite tend to have a spongy coverstock. You could go to the Pro Shop and they can to it. Or you can use the redneck/poorman's version and sit it out in the sun. I used to do this about every 1-2 weeks to keep the reaction, but since I got my Cell I do it about every month and a half. The key to the poorman's versions is to keep an eye on it so it doesn't develop a flat spot or you could sit it on some dowel rods (they go in the finger holes) and do it that way.

IF you do this you will see the reaction come back and it may not be the same as you first got it, but it will get most of its reaction back. Also you'll see how much oil actually comes out of the ball, it's pretty enlightening.

I have a BW Bite too, and the same thing happened to mine. Hook Monster the first month or so and then it died off. You will have to clean it as Mark suggests. Always clean it after every use.
I put mine in some hot tap water with some Dawn dish soap. This helps to extract the oil from the ball. Just leave it in the water for 30-40 minutes and check it, wipe it off with a good ball cleaner. Repeat as necessary, untill no oil is present. Or you can put it on the patio in the hot sun, and watch the oil come out. Keep wiping it down untill the oil is no longer present. Then have a Pro Shop resurface the ball.
It will come back, but nowhere near what it was new.

Could it be your release?