Any body out there who has given these things a try for mooching or trolling for salmon? I suspect that they work best for mooching. Working with the Westport Charterboat Association on getting some of the boats to try them next summer to help cut down on gut- and gill-hooking fish that have to be released.

As always, firsthand experience is most appreciated, especially with regard to rigging.

IIRC my Bro-in-law said they are required for saltwater salmon fishing in California. Maybe post this same question at Catcherman.com. I think they are a California based site.

Several charter skippers in Sitka including Tom Ohouse now use circles when mooching. They work great. As I'm sure you know, the only problem is you can't be jerking to set the hok. Tom says he beleives he hooks almost as many on the circles and lands more of the ones he hooks. I plan to swith to circles for all my mooching.

it seems like a win/win to me. i can release unwanted fish with less change of damage and lose fewer of the fish i hook. I have used circles for sailfish. marlin, halibut and rockfish. They always seem to work just fine.

I've used them for several years with bait and find that once a fish is hooked it stays hooked. If you are real quick on the trigger circles don't have time to get set. Just wait until there is a steady pull before lifting the rod tip. The only problem that I have with them is that the hook wire is too heavy. It tends to make big holes in small baits. Anyone know a source for fine wire circles?

I have been fishing out of Northern California for the past three years with a very high catch rate. In addition to circle only, they also had to be barbless. Like the others said wait for the bite and apply steady pressure, no drastic hook-set.

As for making large holes in the bait, I always used an anchovie threader so only the line was through the bait and the hook remains exposed, or you can tuck it back in the bait.

I agree that circle hooks are fish friendly.

Perhaps a little less fisherman friendly -- I cant tell you how anxiety provoking it it is to watch your rod tip twitch-twich-twitch as the fish begins to munch your bait and not want to yank.

I find it best to wait until the fish looks like it is starting to swim away with your bait and then just start reeling -- the hook really does catch on the side of the lip. Cant think of one deep hooked fish in the past two years.

i use them for catfish, works great on them

i kind of wonder how they'd work while drift fishing. since the point is bent inward i bet it would be a lot better when the fish are in thick to avoid snagging

How wouild you rig the hook for mooching? How would you get the spin? Two hooks?

Oh and Chum Man; you might be on to something...

It seems to me that nine times out of ten the fish poke at the bait several times and usually don't inhale the bait all the way. I thought circles would be fish friendly but your hook up rate would be less than half.
California requires circle hooks only for salmon in the salt water. I read a story in Salt Water Fisherman several years ago, so there must be some data/ experience available.
Just .02

I have been drifting with circle hooks now for 2 years . but only in high milky water conditions. Gamakatsus come in only 3 sizes 3/0,4/0, & 5/0
i wrote them (gamakatsu ) and and they hooked me up ..so to speak , here is what they sent me .....
Please contact Tina at 253-922-2581. This is a part of Sportco where they
will handle special orders. Please note that we only make 3 sizes available
in the barbless octopus circle hook. All hooks are an NS Black finish. The
part number and sizes are;

224413-3/0
224414-4/0
224415-5/0

Please let me know if you have any other questions.


Best regards,

John Burgi
Sales Manager, Western US
Gamakatsu USA, Inc.
.....

They have them in steelhead friendly sizes now. Octopus circle hooks in size 8 thru 8/0 at http://www.gamakatsu.com/catalog/octo_circle.htm

Believe VMC is also making a size 2 circle hook.

What do you guys think about using circle hooks with bait under a well balanced "low drag" float?

DV

Please explain your rigging for mooched herring. Is it a single hook set-up or tandem rig like we currently do with standard octopus hooks for plug-cut herring.

Californians fish anchovies rigged backward (terminal leader threaded thru the tail end and exiting on the head end to the hook) with a single barbless non-offset circle which virtually eliminates gut- or gill-hooking.

Traditions in the PNW die hard, so if a transition to circles is to occur, I would think we'll have to find a way to make them effective for plug-cut herring.

For those looking for hard to find Gamakatsu hooks www.anglersarsenal.com is the best that I found. After several retailers saying they would order the hooks and not following through, I finally found this on-line store and had what I wanted in just a few days.

I personally like the circle hook as the top or front hook only and mooch with a sliding sinker to feed 'em just a little line before I just reel the line tight. Thats it. Fish on and they usually stay that way.
I don't always like circles though. When the King fishing is good and you want to release fish to try and upsize, getting even a barbless circle out without doing too much damage to the fish is difficult. But the circle does get 'em in the jaws and seldomly the gills. Nets damage them too.

Sounds like a single circle rig works pretty well.

Extracting a single barbless circle should be a piece of cake as there is no second hook to accidentally "bite" you. A reverse circular motion is required to extract these hooks. From my experience with halibut, a bare hand works better than pliers. Haven't tried a de-hooker device on circles, but I suspect that a reverse circle motion with the leader hand (rather than just a downwrd force) should do the trick.

If it will stress the fish too much to remove a stubborn hook, better to just cut the leader.

I experimented with circle hooks this past summer pulliing cutplugs for resident silvers in the sound. My fishing partners fished normal hooks. Same bait. Caught lots of shakers and around a dozen keeper size fish.

Overall, I would say that circles don't hook fish as well as normal hooks (maybe only half as good as normal hooks). That is, not as many of the bites get hooked. But once hooked on circles, fish never came off. I hooked eleven keeper size fish on cirlce hooks, and didn't loose one. With normal hooks we typically loose between 25% and half of all resident silvers after hooking them.

However, later in the season when the fish started to get persnickety and just slashed at the bait, hooking fish with circle hooks was nearly impossible.

I would say that circle hooks are much easier on bigger fish to be released. But, for the really small shakers (under 12") I think the circle hooks are much more damaging.

PS all our fishing was with with 1 and 1/0 gamis either circle or octopus.

For something quite different, tie up #1 or 1/0's as winter steelhead flys. In lower water conditions (winter dry line work) they sink like a rock and the hook up rate is very very good.

As sensitive as spey rods may be, when you get into 15 foot or larger 9-11 weight lines, winter takes are amazingly soft. Fish frequently will pick up the fly and float down stream with it in their mouth. Frequently, you won't feel the tightening up on the line. The circle hook tends to slide into the corner of the fishes mouth .... nothing ... fish on!

Just to be clear, circles are absloutly not the best choice when used with artificials. I don't use them much in the NW even for halibut since basicly all my fishing in the salt is done with artificials and my preferance to troll downriggers most of the time.
How ever, in Hawaii and Florida or anywhere I'm using live or dead bait, I love circles. I grew up with them in Hawaii and they're common-place among virtually all bait fisherman there. That's why I experimented with them back when I mooched alot. The circle near the tail of a cut-plug just doesn't get those short strikers, but anything large and/or hungry enough to take it whole is gonna get that circle in the front.
Rule in my boat when releasing salmon, is it doesn't come in the boat no matter what, even when trying to up-size a coastal King. (1 fish limit last year) If it touches the net, it goes in the box. I'd imagine removing a circle boat side is difficult since they really don't get off them on their own once their hooked on 'em anyway.
The only place I'd consider using them in WA is when flyling live 'choves to albacore, besides using them as the top hook in a tandem mooching rig. The design of the circle definately offsets the disadvantage of barbless octopus hooks when that Chinook gets rockin and rollin