Circle hooks for edibles

[Fly-aholic]

I am sure we have flogged this topic to death by now, but I need some assistance.
Preamble:
1.I have been fishing circles for about 6 years, primarily for non edibles with great success.
2. Recently I have started fishing circles for edibles in 2 ways: dingle for cob and a baited circle hook. I tie the floatant (if applicable) on the back of the shank including the bait. This leaves the circle hook and 2/3's of the bend of the hook exposed. I also ensure that the bait is very thin on the front side of the hook, hopefully to ensure a good hook-up.
I have very little time to fish, and I take great care in reading the water for the respective species I am targeting.
With a SE blowing 45km/h at Strandfontein on Friday, I fished a carefully considered spot. Chokka on a 6/0 and baited at above. I am flattend within 10 minutes and carefully tighten the drag as the fish takes off. About 2 minutes later slack line. The bait comes back still as intact as when it was casted.
The wind picked-up and I moved to Melkbaai on the pushing tide.
Small chokka blob baits on 1/0 circle, pulled up the line with hooks exposed, let's see if there is a Blacktail around.
1st a nibble, then the quit period as the small fish sense bigger fish arriving, pull-pull-pull, flatttend again. This time I feel the sinker bouncing along behind the fish and......slack line. Hell, what happened, OK maybe hook too small for the fish.
Change to 4/0 and blob bait. with the blob bait I do not use floatation on the hook, I have a red float about 100mm up the line. Cast,......knibbles,.....slow pull......hard pull flattens me halve way when the sinker started to give resistance. On pappa......... about 3 meters.....off.
This happend 5 times. Ok, lets try small dangle on 4/0 circle. No, bites and went home.
So the question is what the hell am I doing wrong?
Do you guys have success with circles for smaller fish like Dassie, steenbras and galjoen.
I was fishing with BKK 1/0 and 4/0 circles hooks on 0.60mm Maxima, limited slide trace of 400mm and 4 ounce sinker.

Please help this daft fisherman.

 

[Dr halibut hoffman]

I use bigger circles that J hooks when going for edibles? Maybe bugger gape for better hook up? I use 4/0 demon circles for grunters, 8/0 for cobbies..

 

[Fly-aholic]

Hi Doc.
Thanks for the reply. Do you place the bait on the hook for cobbies or do you fish a dingle?
For grunters, I fish 2/0 and hook the prawn in the tail, never failed, I agree.
I really think it has to do with the bait around the hook not allowing the circle to find the scissors/corner of the mouth.
If this is my belief then there a certain species that should not be targeted with circles, especially hotties, black tail and gallies.
I hope I'm wrong.

 

[Fly-aholic]

Fly-aholic wrote:

Hi Doc.
Thanks for the reply. Do you place the bait on the hook for cobbies or do you fish a dingle?
For grunters, I fish 2/0 and hook the prawn in the tail, never failed, I agree.
I really think it has to do with the bait around the hook not allowing the circle to find the scissors/corner of the mouth.
If this is my belief then there a certain species that should not be targeted with circles, especially hotties, black tail and gallies.
I hope I'm wrong.

I use a straight shank circle with a wide gape i.e. BKK. According to me this should( theoretically) give a better hookup ratio as the gape is much wider. Maybe I am understanding the circle methodology completely wrong.

 

[Fly-aholic]

Fly-aholic wrote:

Fly-aholic wrote:

Hi Doc.
Thanks for the reply. Do you place the bait on the hook for cobbies or do you fish a dingle?
For grunters, I fish 2/0 and hook the prawn in the tail, never failed, I agree.
I really think it has to do with the bait around the hook not allowing the circle to find the scissors/corner of the mouth.
If this is my belief then there a certain species that should not be targeted with circles, especially hotties, black tail and gallies.
I hope I'm wrong.

If you look at the circles i.e. size for size, then the BKK and the Adrenalin has the widest gapes.
When I fish dingles I have a very good hookup rate, but there the hook is completely exposed. I have also found that a soft dingle(dacron) allow the hook to swivel more to find the scissors of the mouth than a wire dingle that only allows about 170 degrees movement.

I use a straight shank circle with a wide gape i.e. BKK. According to me this should( theoretically) give a better hookup ratio as the gape is much wider. Maybe I am understanding the circle methodology completely wrong.

 

[Fly-aholic]

Where is Stinkmossel (Rean) in this discussion.
Rean, kom my maat jy is mos 'n guru wanneer dit kom by edibles.

 

[stinkmossel]

mornings!
the biggest mistake we make with circles, especially edibles, is when baiting up.
that hook point needs to be prrrroud.
also, i dont snell me small circle hooks- at all. couple reasons, - the smaller hooks tend to fold back on itself with the angle in the snell knot, especially in the surf-- with you ending up missing the fish. i use the adrenaline range of circle hooks- almost exclusively. 1/0 and 2/0 for gallies, and then 4/0 for bos kobbies. only with bigger edibles will i use the 7/0 finewire or 7/0+ tuna circles.
for me it sounds like the hooksets werent solid- but that can happen with a J hook to.
probably the biggest benefit of using a circle, for me, is that you dont get stuck as often while scratching.
i can post some bait presentations if you would like?
have a great day.

 

[Fly-aholic]

Hi Rean.
Dis omtrent tyd dat jy ophou om niks te doen nie.

Dankie ou maat.

Yes, please post some bait presentations. Another thing to be addressed is what do you do when the fish flattens you, or when do you tighten, raise the rod, do you strike at all etc.
These sounds like elementary questions, but I have missed soooo many fish lately that I need some advise.
My take is I only set the hook, not strike after I feel the fish is well hooked, to drive the circle point home. For edibles I just start reeling against a tighter drag.

 

[Fly-aholic]

What line do you guys use for hook snoots i.e. circle snelling. I use .55mm Maxima and I am thinking it is too stiff and prevents the hook from turning and finding the mouth. Maybe a thinner diameter and softer line for snelling.

 

[Spool-Song]

I got two ways of baiting circles. One is to use a very long thin bait on the shank of the hook, and going up the line, like a thin slice of occie or chokka, or a thin piece of sardine from near the tail of a sardine (skin in), a worm, or even a prawn cut lengthways in half or quarters. That way the hook is still nice and proud.
The other way is to put a messy blobby bait that hangs from the bend of the hook so that the gap between point and shank are free. I use thin slices of occie/chokka, or a blob of redbait with the hook slipped through the tough pointy bits. You can even use mussels if you carefully deshell them and slip the circle through the beard.

Both of these have given good results. I know I'm doing it wrong when I try to put too much bait on, and the gap between point and shank is to too small.

I also like to give the fish lots of time to swallow the bait and swim off, and tighten up on it gently. If you strike like with a J it rarely sets.

 

[Fly-aholic]

Hi Spool-song

I think my problem is that I do not give sufficient time for the bait to be eaten. However, in saying that, on most of the occasions the fish has pulled my to the extend that I could feel the sinker dragging along. This would suggest the hook did not find it mark and a baiting on circle hook issue.
So, I think there are 2 off actions here: Allow fish more time to eat and prepare a slimmer bait. I have seen guys baiting more at around the hook bend, but then they must give ample time for the fish to eat around the hook and expose the point. I don't think baiting a circle is much different than baiting a J-hook, as we all leave the J-hook very exposed in any case. For me, I think the the issue is bait on the inside of the circle, preventing the hook point to turn. I will also try Rean's suggestion where he does not snell the smaller hooks. I fish the exact same dimeter hook trace as Rean, and the only difference is he does not snell smaller hooks.
I also think that the line, exiting the front of the hook when snelled, interfere with the hookup, due to the smaller gape of the smaller hooks.
I have done plenty of research regarding circles and strangely there are many anglers world wide that does NOT snell smaller hooks. General consensus is that they snell from 6/0 upwards. What was also observed was that many anglers globally only snell hooks with an offset eye, ensuring the line pulls inline with the hook shank. With a straight eye, many anglers use a loop knot (Rapala or similar) to afford the hook more movement and twist according to the shape of the circle and find the corner.
So, Rean has a point when not snelling smaller hooks.
I am sure if we use much thinner hook trace line diameter that the hookup will be better, however with the rocky areas we fish, this is not an option.
Final actions after taking all into consideration are the following:
1. Figure of 8 knot on all sizes smaller than 3/0 and snell above that size
2. Build more streamline baits on circles
3. Afford fish more time to eat bait and for circle to be inhaled.

Thank you for everyone's contribution, I will give feedback as soon as I have some conclusion.
Work do not afford me much fishing time, so this research may be a lifelong exercise.

kind regards,
Pierre

 

[DJP]

For small edibles, when you get a bite just slowly drop you rod tip from 11 to 10 O'clock, especially if you fish with a light sinker 3oz and below. If you fish small circles with a heavier sinker, let's say 5oz, then by the time the fish lifts the sinker the hook will be set and you can just reel in. Play around with your hook snoot lengths this makes a big difference and keep you sinker snoot lengths short, much shorter than your hook snoot. I dive a bit and from experience watching reef fish most fish will go down to the bottom to eat because this is where there food will naturally be found, so with you circle that's less prone to snagging get your bait down there. If there is a bit of weeds or seagrass add a little bluefish float.

 

[Fly-aholic]

Excellent advise, thank you DJP.

 

[HL_F]

I use an figure 8 knot on my small circle hooks, works well for me.

 

[scooter]

Hi

Have a look at a lower posting on this link, that trace for Cob looks good and you can see the hook is very proud.

I also have a galjoen setup somewhere that I found on one of the 2 main sites and will post it as well.

regrads

 

[scooter]

the site dont allow me to upload a file, sorry

But I use this concept for my hook. I like that you can "secure" your bait without the issue of slidding down into the hook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeK90QdcgmU

 

[Fly-aholic]

good morning gentlemen.

It seems that most anglers do not snell smaller hooks. This is very interesting as snelling circles is heavily promoted on all website within South Africa.
Scooter - see if you can upload the pictures.

 

[Fly-aholic]

Scooter and DJP- do you use straight eye or angled eye hooks for your circles? This is when you do not snell.

 

[Fly-aholic]

Scooter and DJP- do you use straight eye or angled eye hooks for your circles? This is when you do not snell.

Due you guys use inline or offset circle hooks?

 

[DJP]

I have experimented with all kinds of knots and still snell the small hooks most of the time or just use a fig 8 knot. I use maxima ultra green which is quite stiff and if you give it a good tug when making the trace it kinks the line a bit and the hooks sits straight enough. The snell knot on small thin wire circles is quite bulky so it's irritating when baiting up, especially with worm bait. Also, I have found that if the hook quality isn't good the snell knot might actually be cut by hook wire where the line goes back up through the hook eye.

At one stage we fished with long shank fly circles using a loop knot (rapala knot) so the hook would be free to turn in the fishes mouth, it worked OK. In general I got a bit fed up with the circles after loosing to many good fish. These days I mostly use three hooks for smaller edibles, none are circles. You really have to ask yourself what you want to catch, for me I want to land bigger fish more often so I use larger J hooks, Mustad Big Gun 1/0, Mustad Chino 3/0 and Gamakatsu Trout/salmon 4/0 or 5/0. I don't get fish gut hooked because the hooks are fairly big, and if I hook something I don't have to worry about the hook opening up etc. Also, if the smaller peckers mess up my bait and a big fish takes it I can still set the hook through the bait, that's not happening with a circle.