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No More Trebles


Leon Roskilly

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Although I would agree that the hook up rate seems lower than with trebles, I'm happy enough with my catch rate at this stage :)

 

It is important that:

 

. You do not strike, or 'lean into' the take. Rather, it's a case of gently tightening the line, and slowly increasing pressure if the fish fails to move off (if the fish moves off, the hook will usually set itself).

 

. You try to ensure that the tightening of the line is in the opposite direction to the direction that the fish is moving (so that the hook swivels around the edge of the mouth, and is not pulled forwards out of the mouth without the opportunity to engage).

 

. It's most difficult to get a successful hook up if the take happens at close range (ie when fishing under the rod tip, or when the bait is taken at the bank when being fished sink and draw - again probably more to do with the angle of the line as it leaves the mouth, rather than the distance per se).

 

I'm fairly certain that most failed hook ups have been from small jacks (I've seen and/or felt the fish), and this may be because of failure to take the hook fully into the mouth, or perhaps the mass of the fish isn't sufficient to set the hook properly (I'm not too fussed about losing small jacks!).

 

Or perhaps the size/sharpness of the hook is more critical.

 

I'm now thinking of moving down from 2/0s to see how small I can go, and whether that will eliminate some of the unsuccessful hook ups, whilst still coping with the larger fish.

 

Newt, do you have any advice on sharpening circles?

Edited by Leon Roskilly

RNLI Shoreline Member

Member of the Angling Trust

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I replace mine Leon. I can't approach the point created by the chemical sharpening without weakening the metal so I have quit trying.

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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ah well now then most of the hits ive had from pike were at very close range 15 ft away or closer i knew about not striking and the tightening.

 

newt they have all had the inturned point like the photo at the bottom of your post

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ah well now then most of the hits ive had from pike were at very close range 15 ft away or closer i knew about not striking and the tightening.

 

Winding into fish with circles is easy enough when your pikng as its not that different to "winding down" as your used to doing.................but try light float fishng with a circle! When I was out with Newt fshing for Blue Gills with ultra light float gear I found it extremely hard not to strike when a float went under! So hard to break a habit of a life time.

 

After a couple of seasons using crcles now I think Ive now more or less made my mind up about them for piking.In short you do miss more runs with them than with a treble and I personaly dont have a problem with removing trebles so think that the circles ease of removal doesnt justfy the extra missed fish.Thats for me. Still not sure about Perch or Eels and see no preference either way for our catfish. In fact the only difference between circles and normal singles (for my cattng) is that the circle doesnt penetrate so deep (good) but it does tend to get its point masked when tail hooking lives (bad).

 

Some will no doubt say thats fine for me being an experienced piker but maybe we should encourage newcomers to use circles? Well I still think that its best to teach good handling and unhooking skills.Sorry I just dont have a probem with trebles and simply dont see why others cant use them.And Im sure the great majority of experienced pikers would say the same.Simply because the system works and has done for many years.

 

Newt you say youve struggled to find a rig that works well with circles for carp.The only rig I ever used them with was what I call a "back stop" rig.This is simply a running rig but with a stop placed up the line so that once the fish has taked some line freely it hits the stop and the rig becomes "fixed" thus pricking/setting the hook. Worked well with the smaller sized circles you sent me but I did have a few missed runs.Once again as I had never had a problem wth deephooking carp (not one that couldnt easily be overcome) could find no advantage with the circles over standard singles.

 

Im hoping to try using circles with worm baits for Perch sometme.Going on what I saw with them preventing a lot of deep hooking with the Blue Gills Im hoping they will prove the same. As you know I tried usng small UK type hooks for the Blue Gills at that park lake we went to.Indeed I had to use the disgorger on most of the fish.I wonder though if a lot of this was just down to the fact that the UK hooks I used were small in relation to the fishs mouth (for those that dont know the Blue Gill is quite Perch like but doesnt have the huge mouth) where even the smalest circles were huge in comparrison.I mention ths as it may have something to do with the lesser deep hooking and might be a clue that for perch and eels I/we would need to use much bigger circles than we would normal singles to get the same resuts?

Edited by BUDGIE

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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I caught a jack pike the other day and after a spirited fight, the scissor on one side had popped out to the side. The very corner of the scissors comes to a little point, which had come free from the little socket it fits into. There was no tearing or serious damage but when I returned the fish, it sat in the margins for a good 10 minutes trying to sort out its jaw which clearly was giving it bother. It kept 'inflating' its mouth and skull and shook its head wildly from side to side, all the while, flexing its jaw. It did finally manage to sort itself and after giving its chin a good wagging, it seemed satisfied that everything was working properly and skulked away.

Now I'm not saying that the fish was damaged in any way that wouldn't sort itself out fairly quickly but it was cause for concern and I'm just not happy about deliberately aiming for this part part of the mouth. If anything that one pike has put me right off the idea of going for a scissor-hold. It's a moving part and I'm just not convinced that applying pressure to this mechanism is a good idea. The damage could have been far more serious had it been a bigger, heavier fish.

 

 

 

I admire Leon's experimental attitude to pike fishing and I'm intrigued by his use of circles for pike fishing. Now please don't assume I'm simply jumping on the idea here. This is simply a question OK.

Why is is any better hooking a pike in the scissors?

I'm from the two treble camp when bait fishing but I'm also a big advocate of instant striking and better unhooking techniques. That is without question. I understand as much as any piker what damage a set of swallowed trebles can do. If people learn to instant strike, there is a lesser chance of gut-hooking pike and the trebles might find a solid hold in the pike's mouth-plates. I say might because I struck and lost 4 or 5 fish, while landing only 2. I think that ratio, although poor, is OK from the pike's point of view. No harm done.

Back to the circles now. I wonder if hooking in the scissors is actually detrimental. The scissors is the mechanism for the pike to operate it's jaw for eating and breathing I would think. Which hook-hold is better from the pike's point of view; the solid hold on the pike's bony mouth-plates or by the scissors?

I'm not looking for an argument OK. I'm asking because this concerns me too. I have some of Argylle's circles on some of my lures, so I sit in both camps.

¤«Thʤ«PÔâ©H¤MëíTë®»¤

 

Click HERE for in-fighting, scrapping, name-calling, objectional and often explicit behaviour and cakes. Mind your tin-hat

 

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"I envy not him that eats better meat than I do, nor him that is richer, or that wears better clothes than I do. I envy nobody but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do"

...Izaac Walton...

 

"It looked a really nice swim betwixt weedbed and bank"

...Vagabond...

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Ideally we would aim to hook a fish in an area that would cause minimum damage with the minimum depth of penetration.

 

To easy to (especially with pike) get obsessed with this deep hooking lark. I would go as far as to say that it would be better to hook a pike in the gullet than in the gill rakers you can safely remove deep trebes but a broken/severed raker is certain death. See what I mean about getting too hooked (no pun intended) on the deep hooking issue?

 

In fact a good example is the hook (cant remember its name now,Snaggle Master?) invented by a Mr Shepherd.It was basicly a gorge hook that was designed to lodge in the rakers and be impossible to swallow. He got crucfied in the press for it but no one seemed to realise (even though the hook was potentially leathal) that his motives were good simply got obsessed with tryng to avoid deep hooking and lost sight of the other things.

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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A broken raker isn't certain death. It's not good for it and it might just die but they are often caught, in remarkable health, trailing a broken raker through the gill-flap. I'd have thought you'd have seen or heard of this before. I'm sure Leon or Peter or someone will be along to say they've caught them like this.

Anyway, that doesn't detract from the point you were making. Gut-hooking does seem to take precedence over all other, possible poor hook-ups. If I could have the choice of a hook-hold every time, I'd want a solid hold in the top jaw, close to the lip. As soon as hooks are close to rakers, throats, scissors, tongues etc. problems could arise I think.

I think I remember the hooks you mean. They were sold in camping shops, online, shown on survival programmes of the Ray Mears ilk. I think they were based on a safety-pin but looked like a sharp pointed gag in reverse. Wasn't it the 'hookless-hook' or something mad like that?

¤«Thʤ«PÔâ©H¤MëíTë®»¤

 

Click HERE for in-fighting, scrapping, name-calling, objectional and often explicit behaviour and cakes. Mind your tin-hat

 

Click HERE for Tench Fishing World forums

 

Playboy.jpg

 

LandaPikkoSig.jpg

 

"I envy not him that eats better meat than I do, nor him that is richer, or that wears better clothes than I do. I envy nobody but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do"

...Izaac Walton...

 

"It looked a really nice swim betwixt weedbed and bank"

...Vagabond...

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We wll have to disagree on the raker buisness (Im talking in general terms of course) but as you said its not realy relevant to the point I was trying to make. No in fact your rght to pull me Andy I should have possibly said "a damaged gill raker is more likely to cause death than a simple deep hookng"?

 

Ive not experienced the problem with the jaw "disslocatng" as you describe but have no reson to doubt it. Im sad to say a lot of the preocupation with instant strikng/deep hooking is more down to "fashion" than any real concern.

 

Its difficult to dscuss this sort of thing on some forums as you get instantly accused of reccomending deep hooking! and none wil admit to any damage caused/problems theyve had when piking.

Edited by BUDGIE

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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Circles should do more lip hooking but I'm not sure what would move the hook to the scissors.

 

Budgie - I'll try that rig for carp. As I said, my main reason for even messing with circles for carp is the catfish problem. If it were purely a matter of hooking carp, there are certainly more efficient patterns available and I've never deep hooked a carp that I can remember.

 

As to your deep hooking the 'gills - the tiny hooks may have played a part but not much of one. If they can get a hook into their mouth they will swallow the dang thing. I used light wire #10 hooks before I got turned on to the circles (hard to find smaller than a #10 around here) and a pattern with an extra long shank designed to allow unhooking of more fish. I still deep hooked way more than I was comfortable with.

 

I figure if I'd had you gents for another couple of weeks and another few hundred 'gill bites I could have gotten you used to winding down more often instead of using that Texas Whip motion to set the hook. I do remember quite a few fish going airborne. :D :D

" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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