Fishing Tutorials by Members Thread, Circle Hooks For Inshore/Island Use ? in Fishing Related; No matter. 90% of fishing gear is made to catch fishermen....
i have never lost a fish that was hooked on circle (except several incidents involving a specific marine mammal that will remain unnamed). my hookup ratio is higher with circle hooks. every yellow, albie, or Yellow Fin Tuna i hooked last summer were on circle hooks, i went 13 for 13. definitely want circles if you want to catch and release calicos.
Red rapidly turns to grey underwater due to light penitration. In the top 15' red will be red but below that it's grey.
Circle hooks work well but "J" hooks have their place in your box too. BTW, if you "set" (don't set?) a "J" hook like you set a circle you will get a very high precentage of corner of jaw hookups just like a circle.
What do you all think of red hooks vs. bronze or silver hooks?
I seem to have better luck catching spotties and halibut with the red circle hooks. Of course I do all my inshore fishing shallow, say under 20'. I like the way they hook almost all my fish in the corner of the mouth. Makes for a cleaner catch/release.
Tried to like the circles, but on a 8 dayer last june I let my dad use my owner mutus in the 3/0 size and on a picky Blue Fin Tuna bite he hooked more fish than anyone on the boat (3). But the same thing happened every time, the hooked pulled after 10-20 min fights? It was weird I was just expecting it every time I saw him bendo. He set the hook just how I told him to. Just lift when you get picked up. So I dont know? I do like the ringed gorillas though! THose are my goto hooks on tuna fish
I like wire motu's for inshore and even Alby fishin, but the Owner ringed hooks for wsb and then ringed flyliners on my 5 day @ The Lupe. I even use some red and bronze Octopussy hooks, I got such a deal on them on ebay years ago I havent run out lol.... good for chicken liver and catfishin up here by the house.
Agreed every type if hook has its place in your tackle box
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One HUGE advantage to C-hooks, corner hookset, light line, fewer chew offs. I use a 10-25# setup on Dodo paddy hops when the fish are shy, they would naw right through the mono w/o the corner hook set.
To each his own, but C-hooks have their advantages in certain conditions.
He set the hook just how I told him to. Just lift when you get picked up. So I dont know? I do like the ringed gorillas though! THose are my goto hooks on tuna fish
i have never been on a long range or fished for bluefin, but shouldnt you have your reel in free spool and let the fish eat the bait before trying to hook it?
It sounds rather like you should have upsized the circles on the day, pullouts like that are indicative that the circle did not have sufficient gape to fit behind the jaw bone and only caught the lip skin.
When circles don't fit behind the jaw bone they are no better than any other hook in the same place.
They are great hooks , but they aren't magical...............they have to be big enough to get where they are intended to.
I am a huge fan of circle hooks and have been for almost twenty years now. Most their advantages have been discussed here. I would only add that I have also used them on spreaderbars and marlin lures for those same twenty years. Yup, lures. And yup, they work. I think it's just like it was not too long ago for circles and bait fishing - it isn't happening because not too many people have tried it yet.
Here is a shot of my cockpit leaders hanging on my charterboat down in Cabo. This picture was taken over fifteen years ago. Bait hooks, daytime swordy hooks and shark hooks. All circles, all non-offset and all with the barbs removed. I didn't and don't sell them. I used them for two reasons; they catch and land better than J's and they are far kinder to the fish. We released all of our marlin and sails - and that was a bunch - and way too many tuna to count because we abided by the five tuna boat limit that applied at the time and saw no sense whatsoever in "releasing" fish that we had to beat up to get the hooks out of and have them die later. That applied to billfish, tuna and dorado. Up here that also applies to calicos, wsb, and halibut, shorts or otherwise, and of course, marlin. Circle hooks can be a bitch to get out of a fish, but with the barb gone, it's a snap. And yes, they hold like champs with no barb. We bridled all of our live baits and didn't fish little stuff like sardinas. When it comes to sportboat fishing and little baits it is probably best to keep the barbs on to keep the baits on the hook.
Here's that cockpit shot of hooks & leaders. Then a FatBoy lure of the same era with a circle hook. Last, a big halibut and the circle hook that did him in (see The Halibut Fisherman's Bible for a lot more on butts.) I strongly urge folks to switch over to circle hooks and learn how to use them.
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