Fish baits on circle hooks.

[Dick Dastardly]

I dont rate them to be quite honest.My reccomendation would be to stick with the tried and tested and learn to use treble hooks. But then Im just an old and stuck in my ways piker (or so Im often told) and only tried circles for piking for 5 seasons.

 

In all fairness it was maybe that they didnt suit my style of piking? they simply offered no advantage over the treble and some extra dissadvantages so I found no reason for ME to change.

 

Now for the unpopular bit.Ever since people (and its been all my piking life and before) started looking for alternatives to trebles I have found their reason is simply because they cant/havnt bothered to learn how to use trebles correctly and thats why they are looking for an alternative! If this wasnt the case then why look? I and all the competent pikers I know agree on this.So lets stop looking at "alternatives" for beginers etc and just teach and practice good piking from the start?

[Dick Dastardly]

(The Pikewatch forum is concerned mainly with using single hooks, including circles, for safe pike fishing).

 

 

Seem to be more concerned with pushing bait tagging gear to me mate! And Ive never read so much twaddle in my life! All young relatively inexperienced guys banging on about how wonderfull something that (by their own admission) theyve not tried is!

 

The "PikeWarden" is so typical of many new wave anglers trying to make a name for them selves by resurecting old tired crusades!

 

By all means let people learn for them selves and make thier own minds up about anything "new" (or more acurately "new to them") but I just find it very annoying when before trying/getting any experience of such they presume to tell us who have "all about it" and normally from the dizzy heights of their "high horse"!

[Dick Dastardly]

Ken as the starter of this thread several years ago it would be interesting to hear how much you did with circles and how you found them and indeed what your opinion is now many years later.

[Renrag39]

I started on singles only, livebaiting with my Dad. I've never known 'owt else. Used snaps and they felt alien and cumbersome to me. Not knocking it too much but I just don't like them and have no trouble hooking most runs on single hooks. No worse than people I've fished next to for sure.

 

Found the circles offered better hookup than straight singles and I've never had to concern myself with deep hooking, except to remove others' traces.

 

I've taken 5 snap traces out this year so far... all 12" traces and all from the same place too. Either the Jacks are super fast or the anglers are super negligent (12" trace, really?)... How fast can a Jack choke down a 12" snap and bait I wonder?

 

Renrag

[poledark]

I dont rate them to be quite honest.My reccomendation would be to stick with the tried and tested and learn to use treble hooks. But then Im just an old and stuck in my ways piker (or so Im often told) and only tried circles for piking for 5 seasons.

 

In all fairness it was maybe that they didnt suit my style of piking? they simply offered no advantage over the treble and some extra dissadvantages so I found no reason for ME to change.

 

Now for the unpopular bit.Ever since people (and its been all my piking life and before) started looking for alternatives to trebles I have found their reason is simply because they cant/havnt bothered to learn how to use trebles correctly and thats why they are looking for an alternative! If this wasnt the case then why look? I and all the competent pikers I know agree on this.So lets stop looking at "alternatives" for beginers etc and just teach and practice good piking from the start?

 

I take your point Budgie, but I will be giving them a go over the next month or so, on one rod anyway.

 

I was shown a setup with a trace about 12" long, a loop tied in one end, and the LARGE circle hook mounted about 4" above this loop and a swivel on the other end. Bait is mounted via a baiting needle and the bottom loop passed over the baits head. hook is actually hanging free.

 

Looked quite good to me, and I was assured that it had never caused any deep hooking.

 

I am never completely happy using trebles, and miss a lot on singles, as I tend to strike as soon as possible, so the circles might do the trick for me.

 

Den

[Dick Dastardly]

I had high hopes for circles having used them with sucsess for other species but they just didnt do it for ME Den.I think its a good idea to try them just to see for your self.Some do get on with them. At least you dont have the deep penetration problem associated with big singles.

 

I like to live bait and this is where I found them to be at their poorest but for some one who prefers to use small deadbaits (I know Leon does and rates circles) then they might find a use for them.

 

As I said though if a circle does hook up deep (and despite what people will say they very occaisionally can) they can be nigh on impossible to remove without causing damage.

 

Im not "anti" circles as such (but I am big singles!) but I do get the hump when the "circle evangelists" (who very often have no or very little experience of using them!) start preaching that trebles are evil etc etc and Im the Devil incarnate for still using them and indeed promoting their use.

 

Let us know how you get on with them mate.

[Anderoo]

I didn't get on with them either, and I did give them a fair go. I used them with little lives on the Thames for perch, and had several runs that I couldn't connect with, and one perch that had managed to swallow the hook and was very deep hooked, and which then died. (A deep-hooked circle is impossible to remove.) The reason for using them was to avoid deep-hooking, so this was very disappointing.

 

I also tried them on the little perch stream, and they cost me a fish because of another missed run. That was the last straw for me as bites there really were at a premium and I couldn't afford to miss them. I didn't have any problems with normal hooks before trying circles, so I concluded that for me, they were a bad solution to a problem I didn't have in the first place!

[Dales]

I had intended to give circles a try this year for my Autumn Zander fishing at Bury Hill as they have a singles only rule but from playing around with various presentations over the last 2 seasons I have ended up using ESP big T Carp hooks in size 2 or 4 Carp free to move about on a loop and more often then not use a hair rig. The smallish hooks do seem to give solid hook ups often to the bend of the hook. Which does make me wonder how much damage some of the large sea hooks favoured by many single hook fans must do.

 

As I have found a single hook presentaion that I am happy enough with I can't really see the need to give the circles ago especially as I removed a circle left in a Pike last season that was deepish and to be honest I found it much harder to remove then trebles and only got it out by cutting it up.

 

But now I have finished my BH sessions for the season it will be trebles for the rest of the year. I have never given cirlces ago for freshwater fish so can't really comment on them but I have gut hooked Cuda and Wahoo on circles and so have my doubts to claims that they do not get swallowed and deep hooked.

[Dick Dastardly]

so I concluded that for me, they were a bad solution to a problem I didn't have in the first place!

 

 

Much my view mate.Just thought I should give them a fair go so I could at least speak about them from practical experience.

 

I failed with them for perch as well! That one really surprised me until I re thought it.Basically I had caught loads of Blue Gill on them in the US and indeed they did prevent deep hooking. Newt told me that I would have problems if I didn't use them (basically I did something I allways wanted to do and that was fish "UK style" for some of the more grass roots US species) He was right! Yes I might have caught a slightly higher average size on UK match gear but a high percentage required a disgorger which although not so much a problem because I had one and could use it but showed for sure deep hooking is a problem. I thought that this would mean they would be good for our Perch....

 

In reflection though I didn't take into account that perch have far bigger mouths that Blue Gill unlike Crappie which were a bit more similar.As such the circles we were using in the US (size 6 or 8 Newt?) were relatively quite a gob full for the small fish and I think this attributed greatly to why they worked. Our Perch can inhale a large bait and lump of metal straight back to the danger zone.

 

I have still to give them a proper go for eels (the species I was really interested in trying them for originally) At the moment (or I should say up to this moment) Ive found "T-Baring" hooks (sliding a length of stiff rig tube hooked in the middle onto a size 6 -4 single hook so it looks like an "anchor") has been pretty good at reducing deep hooking but still far from 100%.If the Wingham Carp Lake eels are still there this coming spring/summer (and don't do the "off" like their pals in the Course Lake) I shall be having quite a lot of sessions for them,I will give the circles a go here and report back.

[Phone]

BUDGIE,

 

We preach a similar sermon. The MOST difficult thing to teach a carp fisherman is that on RARE occasion you must sacrifice a treble hook in the name of safety. I am not a "general" advocate of circle hooks if a larger "J" hook will do. In fact, circle hooks have no place in carp angling.

 

Just FYI, a "reasonable" carp hook is a 2/0.

 

While here and have the "soap box" non-ferrous hooks should be against the rules.

 

Phone