Stainless Hooks for Galapagos?

[Team Karma]

I remember DeepC doing some tests that showed that the common lightweight circle hooks don't "rust away" anywhere near as quickly as advertised. Maybe someone here can find the link. Besides, if those hooks were made in stainless the cost of a box would probably more than double, and if you're going through the number of hooks they do in Guatemala etc this could get costly. Some of the lighter hooks could probably be bent open on the wire and that could be a good option when using striped marlin class leaders (probably 150 to 200 max) but on lighter leader the mono would likely break from chaffing first.

Fishing for stripers in Cabo we use eagle claw light wire circles and 100 pound leader. Hooks occasionally come back broken or bent when we pop the fish off. If we bumped up to 130, which i believe wouldn't scare off a feeding striper, we would probably get back a lot more straightened out hooks. New thing to try this winter.

[Southwind]

Ever heard of La Ropa????

[SKK]

Won't stainless hooks eventually rust also?.....essentially causing the same problem just at a much slower pace?

I know that certain circle hooks intended for practicing catch and release are designed to rust in less than a day which makes me assume that the short period of time would not be harmful (fatal/problematic) for the fish.

Are you talking about hook rigs for lures or live bait fishing?

Sorry to take so long getting back on this. Been fishing and, as I provide photo-records for our clients, it results in very long days. In response to your query - We mostly fish a combination of lures and (dead) ballyhoo. But sometimes the frigate-birds (aptly a.k.a. "Pirates") are so attentive that we have to switch to all lures until they disperse. Fortunately our mates are equally adept at releasing birds as fish. So the question applies to both lures and bait and while bait is more likely to be swallowed we also lose the occasional lure to breakage.

In the meantime, the debate has moved on, so I will jump in again further along.