pike/circle hooks

[Kappa]

Slightly off topic (sorry!) but all the perch that have taken my pike baits with size 8 or 6 trebles - usually livebaits - have either been very, very lightly hooked or have fallen off on the way in. There is one exception I can think of when a perch took a static dead and was well hooked, but still not dangerously so. So I wouldn't use trebles for perch because for some reason, no idea why, I don't think they hook up properly.

 

I did once catch an eel of about a pound on a dace livebait with trebles (from the Wissey, incidentally) - now that was a real nightmare...!

 

The hooks I've now started using for perch (Kamasan something or other, yellow packet ) are kind of circle-like. They have a very inturned point and out-turned eye and every perch I've caught on them have been hooked neatly in the scissors. So proper circle hooks might be good for perch.

 

I started writing a new "Circle hooks for perch" thread on my phone last night but I lost the page

 

As the thread seems to have gone that way anyway I'll ask what I was going to ask here:

 

Newt mentioned circle hooks require hard mouths, does this include perch?

 

How do circle hooks behave during the fight, they are such a strange shape I can't get my head around how they might move etc.

 

How deep do circle hooks penetrate? Is a barb necessary or could one pinch it down?

 

I know you are supposed not to strike with circle hooks. Usually when fishing with live baits I tighten the line and then pull the rod into a full curve is that what you should do with circles or it another tightening up method?

 

Rich

[Newt]

Richard - the rather odd shape with the point turned in toward the shaft of the hook is what makes a circle behave as it does. When it reaches a small diameter obstruction (small twig, bony ridge around a fish's mouth, similar) at fairly low speed, the tip catches on the obstruction and the rest of the hook rolls in such a way as to snag firmly on a twig or to dig in on a fish's mouth.

 

No ridge (log, fish's stomach, etc.) or moving across one so fast the point never really makes contact and the hook does not snag.

 

 

The 'hard mouth' is really only the bony ridge that perch, pike, catfish, and others have but that carp and other sucker mouth fish lack. I have caught carp on circles but the hookup rate is not as good as with a more usual pattern.

 

The ones I use most often, Gamakatsu Octopus Circle hooks like the one pictured, have a microbarb that mainly helps in keeping a bait on the hook but a barb really isn't needed to keep a fish on once hooked so crushing it down is fine.

 

Winding down is the preferred method. Traditional strikes usually just cause the hook to slide free with no hookup. Just ask Budgie about bluegill fishing with floats. :D

 

Steve Burke has expressed concern with the hook penetrating deeply enough in a perch to be dangerous. I don't have large perch where I fish so can't say for sure but since the vast majority of my hookups are in the scissors, I'm not sure if the danger with large circles (the narrow gape means you have to use larger sizes than with a J hook style) is real or more theoretical.

 

I started using them in the smallest size I could find (#8) for bluegills since we were deep hooking way to many for my taste and we went from about 1 in 5 to fewer than 1 in 50. I then tried with catfish (also tend to swollow a bait without warning) and get almost all scissors or a bait that was swollowed deep in the belly but that a slow, steady pull will bring out without ever hooking since there is no suitable obstruction down there to cause the point to roll into tissue.

 

Overall and with the exception of catfish, I think I get a lower percentage of hookups but not by much and the fact that the ones I do hook are in the scissors makes using circles a thing I am happy to do.

 

Other than carp hooks, I no longer use non-circles for bait and I am even replacing trebles on lures with circles. Lures hang up less and they do catch fish.

[Anderoo]

 

That's a very similar shape to the Kamasans, just slightly more exaggerated at the point.

[Kappa]

That's a very similar shape to the Kamasans, just slightly more exaggerated at the point.

 

I've ordered some circle hooks, I'm hoping they will arrive by tomorrow!

 

Rich