Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Circle hooks

We have been fishing 4 tanks or ponds or pools of water here east of San Antonio, Tx. for years and have used live bait for all those years and have not lost more than five bass out of hundreds caught from taking a hook too deep. We started using the line thru the gill technique to save those hooked fairly deeply quite a while back and it has been very succesful. We also have missed many bites when we tried the circle hooks. I was wondering if others have seen the same problem with circle hooks and also had no problems with live bait. One quick story. I hooked a bass that was about 1 lb. a few weeks ago and watched him jump a couple of times and all of a sudden my pole bent a lot more than a one pounder could bend it. The water was real clear (another problem) and I saw about a five pounder with the little guy sticking out of his mouth swim by. I kept up the pressure and the bigger boy turned loose. When I got the small one in he was missing some scale on both sides but otherwise ok. Turned him loose cause I figured he had had a bad enough day at that point.

when using circle hooks you don't want to use a snapping hookset like you normally would when you get a bite. Just tighten the line and the hook will catch the fish in the corner of the mouth. It is hard to get used to when you are so used to a bone jarring hookset when bass fishing with lures. Try it, good luck! Even if fish take the bait deep a circle hook will rarely gut hook them.

Thx bass, but we do (or did) that and missed many strikes. Anyway, not a big fan of circle hooks.

I prefer a regular hook myself. If I hook them too deep to unhook them unharmed, they become dinner that's all.

Circle hooks probably aren't as necessary for LMB since they do, in fact, have large mouths. However, for releasing bluegills, yellow perch, red-ear sunfish and other fish with small mouths, they really do work well. Also for catfish that you wish to release.

As many people have said, using circle hooks requires a very different technique than do other hook shapes. I think that they are extremely useful for kids and other inexperienced fishermen.

For bream all I use is circle hooks. They almost have to hook themselves, but once you get use to them they work great. Best hook for catch and release

I recently went to buy my first circle hooks and also found Octopus hooks. They looked close to the same. What is the difference?

Dave,
Octopus hooks have an offset bend.
Check the hooks on the pellet flies I sent you - they are tied on #4 Mustad Octopus hooks.

George Glazener

Dave what I use is octopus hooks, I thought they were the same