Just a Thought...

[mtecu]

I have been trying to do research on circle hooks lately and I have not seen or heard of a method for rigging one that would allow a ballyhoo or mack to be pulled with an islander etc. that doesnt put the hook out in front of the lure. Do you guys think a circle hook stiff rigged on a piece of cable would work rigged on top of a hoo? By doing this it would get the hook away from the head of the lure, which should provide a better hook up ratio.

THE IDEA- Rig the ballyhoo or mack with a chin weight using wire then take the main line to a stiff rigged circle hook and floss it to the top of a hoo. The cable being stiched down the back just under the back bone half way down the the body.Do you think the hook would twist? . Do yall think this would work or maybe a variation of this?

[Deep C]

I used to manufacture a number of models of hoo covering lures. We tried ourselves and we sent 500 around the world to others trying to come up with a rig that works. Unfortunately we had very little success. 36 for roughly 200 bites in the Pacific was the best ratio that anyone found for us.
I personally tried standard rig with lure over, setting bait back from lure, stitched mid body, stitched back at tail, wired out front of both bait and lure. Getting them to run and look good was not an issue. Hook up rate for us has been nearly nil.
What we found is that when the line gets tight, the lure is drawn through the mouth of the fish and forces the mouth open. Our designs were mostly concave and broad. The diameter of the head forced the mouth open wider than the gap of the hook and it couldn't set. Physics came into play and to date we have had no success so to speak of.
This season I have switched to circle for all my live and dead nakeds and have come to honestly like them better than J for that application. I dialed in a rig for the deads that I really like and now that I'm getting more comfortable in their use I am hoping that I can tune it some more to take a lure on top.
NMFS has offered up only bridle rigging with the hook in front of the bait and lure as their only viable option for rigging which potentially will cost you a lure when you get a bite as its just bridled by light monel. Their demo did utilize the pointed ilander as the covering. It was "created" by scientists operating on "theory" but no practical proof of effectiveness was submitted with the suggestion.

[mtecu]

Do you think that the hook up ratio will be poor with a lure regardless due to the diameter of the head? wouldnt this hold true for the lure being behing the hook as well?

[Deep C]

As the hook is exiting the mouth first I could see where it may improve some at least in theory. The bullet design has a smaller diameter at least to start. My lures did not improve ratio with forward or not as they are fairly large diameterat the front of the concave. For the gap of the circle to exceed our diameter it wiuld have to be prohibitively huge.
Still we're looking at a few things that could work. My natural rig has me thinking about stuff. The hook basically lays up the forehead and the gap would be pretty well exposed. Instead of a round recepticle for the hoos nose to set in as we have now, I could some how make the recepticle farher aft and angled. This would "lock" the bait in position and the gap may be high enough above the rim of the lure to hang on something while exiting.
My tear drop lure is my favorite for raising fish and I hate to lose it in a spread. My Dk has a smaller diameter and is hand poured so it could be more practical to experiment with. Good bait too I could live with it even of her larger cousin teardrop doesn't make the cut... If I can dial in the DK I could continue hunting for an answer for the other. Gotta keep trying. Would love for someone to nail something so I can get back to at least limited production.