Circle hooks are they working????

[bvette]

I talked to a few excellent charter boat captains recently and they are not happy with fishing with circle hooks for billfish. The reason is they are getting a large # of fish hooked in the gills. As the the battle goes on they have ripped the gills out of the fish. You know that fish is dead. Their feeling is that the J hooks that may get gut hooked still may have a chance of survival. The circle hook for chunking tuna seems to work fine. Has anyone else seen this happen? Is the sollution to billfishing pulling lures? I have never seen a gut hooked fish pulling a lure. The numbers may go down a little but the fish should survive. What do you think?

[Robja]

We have fished with Circles in Central America for several years and I don't ever remember having a bill fish get hooked in the gills.

[Deep C]

My early experiments with circles was with combo lure/baits and I was pulling a resounding zilch with them. Nakeds on the troll was never an issue. When I went to them at first for live bait I had an awful time with hooking them anyplace but the mouth. I asked for help and after a round or two of saying I was full of shit and one of our members offered up a simple suggestion.
As the circle really works backward from anything I had spent a lifetime learning it was hard for me to try but several other members chimed in. My problem was solved simply by going to a snell rather than my trusted friend the uni knot. The gill and eye and forehead and gut issue never happened again.
That being said I am not sold in the least that they are "better" for the fish. I'll explain.... I catch a few fish each year with hooks and leaders drfagging from them. Many of my friends do too. One made an observation that we all experienced. None of the fish we recaptured had circles in them. Certainly its difficult to get a circle out and most of them are released along with the fish. If half our billfish in florida are being taken using circle how come no recapture?
I tried to see if they rust faster than regular hooks and after a month in the soup the answer was no. That wasn't it. Then a friend who is a big time giant man showed me some data from the tuna people. Giants that had been seined and had circles (mostly from longlines) were showing up at the market with inflamed mandibular joints (where circles most often set) and were emaciated to the point of being virtually unsellable. This implies rightly so that the short term damage may be less but the irritation to the moving parts of the jaw are so great that the fish can no longer eat...

[joeksr]

A hook in the corner of your jaw could inhibit your ability to feed.
So.

Now that we have lots of info on how to rig circle hooks,
When will someone tell us how to get a circle hook out without ripppin the fishes jaw off or killin it in the process?
De hookers just dont seem to work with circles.

[sancocho]

Originally Posted by joeksr

When will someone tell us how to get a circle hook out without ripppin the fishes jaw off or killin it in the process?
De hookers just dont seem to work with circles.

Check the mate aboard the Captain hook using the de hooker to remove a 7/0 circle hook off of a sailfish, they released 5 sails that day, de hooker really works,

check after min 2:16

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecApq1oA8WE

suerte,

[floridadeckie]

one of the biggest problems is that alot of people are using the wrong circles. there are alot of "circle hooks" that are nothing more than a J hook with a hang nail on the point, or offset circle. an offset circle is no better than a J hook in terms of gut or gill hooking. if you want the performance that circles are touted to have, you have to use non-offset circles with some sort of snell knot, whether its a true snell or a uni-snell. crimping it with a small but floppy loop will work as well

[Questsportfishing]

use the right ones and get a ARC dehooker or make your own ... there is no reason to leave a hook in the fish in 2008. I have not once yet hooked a sail sword or blue in the gills except with J hooks (and my favorite is the 084 eagle claw on J's! they bite into anything!) the circle hook is so easy to get out with the ARC de hooker.

[sancocho]

Originally Posted by floridadeckie

one of the biggest problems is that alot of people are using the wrong circles. there are alot of "circle hooks" that are nothing more than a J hook with a hang nail on the point, or offset circle. an offset circle is no better than a J hook in terms of gut or gill hooking. if you want the performance that circles are touted to have, you have to use non-offset circles with some sort of snell knot, whether its a true snell or a uni-snell. crimping it with a small but floppy loop will work as well

After this we need to add the second big problem, is that the anglers are giving the free spool or drop back too long until 9 seconds on some occasions, the gut or gill hooking its much with the offset circle hooks but also happen ( although in much much smaller scale ) with the no offset circle hooks,


3 or 4 seconds maximum of free spool (at least that's what we have been doing here in guatemala during the last 9 or 10 years) is sufficient for sailfish caught the head, stops swiming, bite to kill and swallow the bait,


suerte,

[joeksr]

Looks like I need to get an Arc de hooker.
I'll start with an inshore model and If I can get the hang of it looks like a bigger model might be just the ticket for shark releases.
The one i've been using for inshore release works great on J hooks but just wont twist a circle out.

[Questsportfishing]

Look up the ARC it has a round curled up end on it and if you fish big sharks billfish etc get a set of bolt cutting pliers (you never know when you need a set) the ring goes down on the hook and spins it right out. Practice on a dead fish lol anyway like the Freelance said a uni knot works great feel the fish and the hookups are fun ... snappers and grouper work well with MUTU's 2/0 - 5/0 just a hint.. the circle hooks work great even the miami and Ft Lauderdale billfish tourn.s have been useing them for a long time now be safe and get a long handled ARC if you are billfishing or shark fishing. be safe but have fun.