Circle hooks

[white death]

As I have never fished with Circle hooks and have been told that the fish hook themselves on these hooks. If I tied flies on these hooks and the fish spits out the fly, would it hook itself?

[Korrie]

Clever but it does not happen, use normal hooks

[Ko7Ad]

You still need to put pressure on the hook to get it to set! Works great for bait fishermen cause the fish has the bait it in its mouth longer and having a stiff drag sets the hook for you as the fish moves off.

Under normal fly fishing conditions the fish can actually spit the fly much easier because you won't have sufficient tension on the line to force the hook to turn and set.

But it works great Czech nymphing once you get the hang of it as you always have contact with the fly and can easily add pressure once you have a take. I know the "pros" won't agree and say they have a drop in catch rates but I only use them for caddis imitations for yellowfish and I cannot see any impact on my catch rates at all.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Ko7Ad]

Double post

[Andre]

Generally there is more chance of droppin the fish on a circle hook. Circle hooks were developed for "catch and release" gamefish competitions, to make it easier to pull the hook out of the fish's thoat for less injury to the fish, for deep hooked fish.

As I have never fished with Circle hooks and have been told that the fish hook themselves on these hooks. If I tied flies on these hooks and the fish spits out the fly, would it hook itself?

[Nepptune]

Generally there is more chance of droppin the fish on a circle hook. Circle hooks were developed for "catch and release" gamefish competitions, to make it easier to pull the hook out of the fish's thoat for less injury to the fish, for deep hooked fish.

Sorry mate, disagree 100% with you there... circle hooks were developed by the long liner industry because they are so effective at staying hooked, and because they make use of the fishes motion and weight/tension of the line to penetrate the fishes jaw/lips/mouth rather than requiring an actual striking motion...

Game fishing adopted the use of circle hooks for a number of reasons, and the primary one being their effectiveness, especially with live baits and skip baits etc on drop back... The second and trust me it was far down the line, was the fact that they 95% of the time end up in the corner of a fishes jaw, rather than in the gills... gone are the days of needing to feed a fish a bait for ages before setting the hook.. with circles, as soon as the fish grabs the bait, you just stay tight and they essentially hook themselves... This was an added bonus of circle hooks, and their use in game fishing... I can promise you if they weren't deadly effective at staying buttoned to fish, they would not be used by sport or commercial fisherman...

Regarding their "ease of removal".... no ways... a J Hook is FAR easier to remove than a circle hook.... once a circle hook is in, its in for good, until you can release all pressure on the hook and turn it almost 200 degrees and back it out... once a fish is hooked on a circle, it will not spit the hook... the hook could pull through on a fish with a soft mouth, but its never gonna get spat the way a J-Hook could...

And trust me, a circle hook that does somehow get stuck in a fishes throat or gills, does ALOT more damage than a J-Hook, because getting it out is a nightmare...

In terms of circle hooks on flies... well I won't comment on that cause I've never used them on flies.... so those with experience above will certainly have better input... but I can categorically tell you that Circle hooks definitely stay buttoned on fish better once hooked up....

[GGY]

I don't agree.
I tested circle hooks years ago before they were more commonly available and can categorically say that is you want to hook less things (bottom, sticks, FISH), use circle hooks on flies.

[Nepptune]

Gary - I agree with you in terms of hooking less things like snags etc, what I was disagreeing with was the statement that Circle hooks were developed for the game fishing industry and that there was more dropping of fish once hooked, and that circle hooks were easier to pull out than J-Hooks...

I've fished circles for nearly 20 years on the conventional side of things and agree with your statement about hooking less things like the bottom and snags etc ( great when bait fishing in amongst structure etc ) but they are deadly effective when used on fish, with the correct technique.... and they stay buttoned better than any other kind of hook I've used...

As I said though, my experience with circles and flies is completely ZERO, and your information relating to their effectiveness on flies is of course that much more valid as you've actually tested them, extensively I'm sure...

The nature of how they effectively work doesn't lend them to general fly fishing... the fish need to be able to grab the fly and turn away from you while keeping tension to then pull the hook into the corner of the mouth.... General fly fishing practice doesn't allow this technique to come into play....

[Andre]

As I said though, my experience with circles and flies is completely ZERO, and your information relating to their effectiveness on flies is of course that much more valid as you've actually tested them, extensively I'm sure...

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I did a 6 hour test on the Orange a few years back. Three one hour sessions each, alternating between conventional and circle hook rigs, There were four guys doing this at the same time, while two guys were on circle rigs, the others were on conventional. and alternating each hour. The guys who were on conventional hooks, out caught the circles by about 50 % every time.

[Korrie]

I did a 6 hour test on the Orange a few years back. Three one hour sessions each, alternating between conventional and circle hook rigs, There were four guys doing this at the same time, while two guys were on circle rigs, the others were on conventional. and alternating each hour. The guys who were on conventional hooks, out caught the circles by about 50 % every time.

the conventional guys where the better anglers, that is why.