I've switched to circle hooks from Aberdeens on account of having difficulty removing hooks from some deeply hooked fish. My findings are the opposite to yours and I find far more of my catch hooked in the mouth and much easier to release without causing any harm.

 

I was an advocate of circle hooks, but my morals are weeing me off such hooks within certain remits of my angling and the reason for this is that they are too good at what they do, yes it is crazy to curse a hook that by design is doing its job perfectly.

I am noticing that they are too good at hooking into fishes and as such they are a real pain to remove from mouths/gill areas of the fishes and that the mortality rate has increased and I try the hardest to remove a hook cleanly, but smaller greedy fishes are very hard to remove before they expire.

I am going to have to increase the hook size by quite a margin dependent upon pest species in the area in order to reduce the risk of them hooking up, which is difficult as I have seen 15cm Whiting on a 10/0 hook and it was not the bait either lol.

What are your findings?

I think its going to depend on the area. I fish a spot where dabs are super aggressive and pull the rod in. With them circles work great and their aggressive feeding means corner mouth hooks 90% in my using them.
On the LRF rod where I've started using them in tiny #10 with isome the coalies and pollack can take them further back than ideal some times but I still find them better than a standard tiny hook.
On the beach in general I've found I hook nothing with them so they are 100% safe.

 

On the LRF rod where I've started using them in tiny #10 with isome the coalies and pollack can take them further back than ideal some times but I still find them better than a standard tiny hook.

The lighter the lure, the easier it is to suck in deep. Some time ago I read an article about mortality rates in rod-caught pikes both by size of the fish and type of lure. Flies caused the highest mortality rates whereas heavy jerkbaits caused fewer deaths. It was hypothesised that due to the much lower weight, the flies generally hooked the pike deeper thus caused more harm than jerkbaits. Sadly I can't remember where I read it.
Sounds plausible in my ears and I can easily imagine the picture being the same for other species. To add insult to injury lighter (eg. LRF) lures are generally fished with smaller hooks which I guess go easier down the gutter unnoticed than a larger hook.
And this kindda long text is only halfway related to the original topic, I know

 

have always said they are not the be all and end all of hooks, they are designed to be used on fast moving fish that hit baits hard and then run... not our slow moving fish. Yes they work to an extent but if you are not very careful you do kill more fish due to deep hooking.

 

A simple solution squeeze the barb down with a pair of long nose pliers or try barbless circles.

 

If you look at the US studies on barbless hooks they suggest mortality can be higher. The barbless point penetrates further risking more delicate areas. Some states in US have banned barbless.
I believe a micro barb is safest for fish.

 

Circle hooks were developed for long lining so that fish hooked for hours would not come off but were easy to unhook when retrieved.

 

Well whatever are some of your views upon circle hooks, they are causing me issues and I will not stop using them but I will however consider them with more thought when in certain areas and the application of such hooks. Been at this a long time and learning is part and parcel of the game.

 

Was that study done on all hook types or only some? I would imagine that due to the nature of a circle and the force applied to that hook during playing a fish being linear, and not rotational, then the penetration would be limited compared to more conventional style hooks. Just a thought.

Oh, yes it was only on J hooks. Not circles.

 

So you cant say that barbless circle hooks are any worse than circles with barbs

 

Have long been of the belief that a well presented J hook in various configurations is the only way to go, though there are a couple of specific species where circle hooks do excel and are better than J hooks at securing the target species (Tarpon and Tigerfish - both have exceedingly hard mouths).

The issue with J hooks is that people just tie them on and don't pay heed to how the hook might behave once the bait is taken. When doing some research into shark survivability on both free swimming and bottom dwelling sharks, we found we could get near 100% mouth hooked sharks, simply by stiff rigging the hooks, and in this fashion they acted just like circles but without all the issues associated with circles. Taking this through to many other species, whether boat or beach fishing we have found this to be a significant improvement on both 'hook up' ratios and mouth hooking.

Admittedly this style doesn't lend itself to use with species where worms are threaded up long shanked hooks and even the trace, but generally we also found that shorter shanked hooks had less problems than long shank.

Just my personal findings and experience.

 

I

I was an advocate of circle hooks, but my morals are weeing me off such hooks within certain remits of my angling and the reason for this is that they are too good at what they do, yes it is crazy to curse a hook that by design is doing its job perfectly.

I am noticing that they are too good at hooking into fishes and as such they are a real pain to remove from mouths/gill areas of the fishes and that the mortality rate has increased and I try the hardest to remove a hook cleanly, but smaller greedy fishes are very hard to remove before they expire.

I am going to have to increase the hook size by quite a margin dependent upon pest species in the area in order to reduce the risk of them hooking up, which is difficult as I have seen 15cm Whiting on a 10/0 hook and it was not the bait either lol.

What are your findings?

I use de-barbed circle hooks in four very different situations: uptiding for cod and rays, drifting for plaice and in fresh water livebaiting for perch and fishing the maggot feeder for roach.
In all four cases, the fish is hooked in the lip, either against the resistance of the lead or feeder or by me winding into the fish after it has turned away with the bait.
However, circles have not proved very successful with conger, and I now believe it is because they often do not turn and swim away with the bait but instead swim backwards with it clamped in their jaws.
I believe this accounts for many eels coming off in midwater; they simply let go.
For conger, I am turning to de-barbed offset J hooks this winter.
Whenever possible, I use circle hooks to avoid deep hooking, though it is important that bulky baits do not obstruct the gape of the hook.

 

However, circles have not proved very successful with conger, and I now believe it is because they often do not turn and swim away with the bait but instead swim backwards with it clamped in their jaws.
I believe this accounts for many eels coming off in midwater; they simply let go..

I watched a freshwater eel do this to my worm bait in clear shallow water, very interesting!

 

Circle hooks were developed for long lining so that fish hooked for hours would not come off but were easy to unhook when retrieved.

I thought they were designed by an Aussie longliner to hook less coral !

 

I use 3/0 circles with peeler/softie crab baits. I rarely deep hook a fish now. Used to miss a lot of bass with conventional j hooks. So the change has certainly upped my catch rate. I dont have the smaller species pestering me like yourself so couldn't comment on that aspect of my fishing. I do hook into a flounder now and again which are also normally lip hooked.

 

After reviewing what others have commented on here, I have chosen to continue experimenting with circles.
Whereas I would not normally use a large hook in the 4/0-5/0 range for the species in this area at this time, I will however use 5/0 circle hooks as they are larger but not by a great margin compared to a standard J-hook design, my thinking is like this; I can get better presentation from a larger hook and hopefully the hook gape is far too large for the smaller pest species to engulf. Catch rate will be reduced but for the better and any larger species will have no issues in taking a 5/0 circle thanks to the compact size they offer.

 

The only use I have for circles is as a top hook on a pennel rig, I use one roughly equivelent in size to a standard 1/0 "J "hook. I must admit recently that I have had a lot of Whiting / Doggies on the top circle hooks, and tbh I find circles a real pain to get out , even when they have found a hold near the fishes lip.
I know that I will get a lot of people saying they are easy to get out, well fine for you, all good.
For me they are a pain and as such they wont be used as a main single bait hook ever.

Dave

 

The only use I have for circles is as a top hook on a pennel rig, I use one roughly equivelent in size to a standard 1/0 "J "hook. I must admit recently that I have had a lot of Whiting / Doggies on the top circle hooks, and tbh I find circles a real pain to get out , even when they have found a hold near the fishes lip.
I know that I will get a lot of people saying they are easy to get out, well fine for you, all good.
For me they are a pain and as such they wont be used as a main single bait hook ever.

Dave

Got to agree with you as I find them hard to get out as I have not seemingly mastered the knack, I have no problem unhooking larger mouthed species.

 

If it helps guys I turn them out to the side and then push said hook towards the other scissor in the jaw. Hope this helps. I also do get bites from smaller species attacking my crab baits but rarely anything comes of it. I have actually wound in a little with such finicky little bites to hopefully remove the bait away from them.

 

I’ve been using circle hooks for some time now. I find them fantastic for Tope and Huss. I rarely lose a fish these days from shore or boat. I use 8/0 VMC Tournament circles and big baits. Never had a problem unhooking with a T-bar.

I’ve never been convinced they’d work well for rays (but don’t often fish for them), but they don’t work well on Conger. I’ve had the odd one or two hooked through the lower jaw, but rarely in the “scissors”, which is how they’re supposed to work. In the meantime, missed too many bites while those around me have been hooking them with J hooks.

No real experience of using them for flatties, Bream, Bass etc

 

I mostly use circle hooks when using bait and have some good results. I know that if I leave the rod when the bites start to occur, the fish should get hooked when it eventually stops toying with the bait, takes it in its mouth and swims off. Its pretty annoying when you get cracking bites register on your rod tip, reel in a bit and there is nothing on the end.

 

Also i have tried circles from a boat. And others were catching more cod than me. I think they seem to work better with a more predatory species. Like bass. hound. Or similar.

 

Also i have tried circles from a boat. And others were catching more cod than me. I think they seem to work better with a more predatory species. Like bass. hound. Or similar.

Cod are pretty predatory! I think for circles to work well, the gape of the hook must be unobstructed and the fish needs to turn and swim away after taking the bait. If bait is threaded or lashed onto the hook, unless a large hook is used, the space between point and shank can be blocked. Conger may swim backwards with the bait rather than turning away, so may not be hooked at all. They clamp on to the bait, you bring them part-way in and they let go. I think circles work best when the bait, eg a lip-hooked fish or a strip of mackerel, is just hooked once and hangs on the bend of the circle. I find them effective for turbot like this.

 

're cod are predatory you may be right. But I can't seem to think of any other reason why they don't seem to take a circle hook. I was definitely out fished same baits same number of bites too but hook up rate was pants. 4/0 /5/0circle should be big enough for a cod cannot see no other logical reason for it tbh 're lashed to hook this is all I do whilst bass fishing with peelers so cannot see why that wouldn't work. I expose the hook point on all my baits. It certainly is a wierd one.

 

To be honest I'm not new to using circles. Nor uptiding from a boat...Actually Been using them for yonks. It's just that I was getting a bite winding In. Not striking! Slowly and nothing every time it was happening not just the once. I was using lug n tippied with strip of squid. Don't think the bait was hampering hook up the. I would like to know if others on this forum use the circles for cod with any success?

 

OK, for what it is worth, here is my take on your issue -

A while back, a few cod anglers up my way started using circle hooks as a top pennel while shore fishing. Like you, I had tried circles on their own and been rather disappointed, so it seemed bizarre to consider them as a pennel.

A fairly successful cod angler tried to explain why they worked for that, and it made sense to me, so I gave it a try.

He likened cod to seagulls. If you threw bread to them, they all rushed it, but one would grab it first and take it away from the group to eat it. Somewhat naturally, they grabbed the bait around the middle, if that makes sense?

If they swallowed in situ, the J hook would get them. If they grabbed and swam, the circle would.

So, essentially, the circle is tucked into the side of the bait, not off the end as they are traditionally used. It is just pushed under the turn of your bait elastic.
Now lots use them.

And here might be your problem. If cod are just grabbing your bait, in order to turn with it and eat it, they won't be hooked if the hook is 'hair rigged', or similar, because the hook will be out of the sides of their mouths.

 

There is a learning curve, hard to know what to say about issues without seeing for myself. Fish going backwards is definitely an issue though. For other fish you should be doing well.

Try a different baiting style or perhaps a different knot. I remember having some issues when I first started.

 

If circles aren't working for particular bait combinations and species, then why not revert back to 'J' hooks, especially if the species caught is destined for the table.

Seen 100's of people trying hard to make circles work for them with all sorts of variations on how they are having to present the bait to get the hook to work …………… seems odd, when a simple 'J' hook presentation will work just fine.

 

To be honest bronz that's exactly what I did. And with better hook up results. However I still use circles from the beach when targeting bass. As when they hit them it's always a near perfect hook up. Hence why I feel cod bites0 are not savage enough to set a circle. Hence the change.

 

Dont want offend anybody but hey who really cares....you need to have a certain amount of common sense on this subject think about what you say before posting as some people it sems just simply dont .

 

Dont want offend anybody but hey who really cares....you need to have a certain amount of common sense on this subject think about what you say before posting as some people it sems just simply dont .

And your reference ie common sense is directing to what post or whom?

 

If you have to ask..

 

Here is a thought taken from another topic on pennel hooks, so alot of anglers swear by circle hooks as a top hook, stating that they hook alot of fish on the top hook. Is there not something to take from this, the top hook is always snelled, therefore should we also snell our circle hooks in a typical single hooked snood?

Has anobody tried this, it makes sense that a snelled hook is kept rigid due to the snood as opposed to a knot allowing it to rotate. Any thoughts?

 

Here is a thought taken from another topic on pennel hooks, so alot of anglers swear by circle hooks as a top hook, stating that they hook alot of fish on the top hook. Is there not something to take from this, the top hook is always snelled, therefore should we also snell our circle hooks in a typical single hooked snood?

Has anobody tried this, it makes sense that a snelled hook is kept rigid due to the snood as opposed to a knot allowing it to rotate. Any thoughts?

There are two schools of thought on that topic, snelling to fix the actuation of the hook, or loose loop to allow the hook freedom to actuate.

I can only comment where I have personally tried these two options, which was live baiting for Tarpon - loose loop on a crimped leader seemed to have slightly better success on pick up.

Tried them years ago when doing shark conservation work on Tope from boats, and neither snelled or loose seemed to have an advantage. Though snelled J hooks seemed slight more effective over loose loop.

Just my experience.

 

I don’t understand the point of a loose top hook on a Pennel hook rig, just by simply wrapping the snood line around the shank and hook it into the top of the bait, to stop a big bait sliding down, this can easy twist, slide, and the bait end up in a bunch on the bottom hook, masking it. You could use some shearing elastic to hold the bait and hook in place, but it's far better to use some silicone tube, or even better snelled the hook to the snood, using a separate piece of mono, power gum or braid, you can get bent eyed circle hooks for Pennel, so it can still just about slide, or even off set the hooks, to suit the different size of baits and a far better presentation.