Originally Posted by
Paul Weingartz
Gerrit, if you are looking at larger streamers I absolutely recommend circle hooks. A friend of mine who is GT fanatic like myself started using them 2 years ago and I first used the Owner SSW in line circle Dec 2006 in Sey, absolutely 100 % hookup rate on Gt's, snapper, rock cod and bluefin. I refuse to use anything else on slammer, profile, semper and silicone mullet type flies . We only use them debarbed and with it being a circle you don't loose the fish if it gets slack line( See Ufudu flies at Solly's fourways for an example ) I have had the same success rate here at home. recently had 61, 55 cm, greenspot, 62 , 54cm bluefin kingfish on 6/0 hook, not to mention several much bigger giant kingfish which all broke me up on the reef.. I refuse to fish with anything else except on a popper ( at present experimenting with that too). You can get these hooks in 5. 6. 8/0. The reason they work well is their shape and weight makes them keel well, so other circles don't swim and work as good for me. An aquaintance just came ack from a Sey trip where he used exclusively Ufudu flies with owner circles, the guides and other sey fishers were derogatory about his flies, yet he was the only one who had a good hook up rate, the others lost many fish !
I have heard of guys complaining about losing fish on circles , this may be true for various reasons, style of circle, method of stripping, trying to strike when the fish takes, which is probably the most common fault. Very often when guys come the salt from fresh they lift the rod when the fish takes which is guaranteed to pull the fly out of it's mouth, even more so with a circle. When stripping, ( two handed is best for me ) you keep stripping until the fish hooks itself only then strip strike or in the case of bigger fish trying to stop the fish will have the same effect.
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