Product Review: Are Circle Hooks For You?
Originally Posted on Procats Online Magazine
Circle hooks have created a debate in recent years between anglers who fish in rivers and those who fish in lakes. When using circle hooks in rivers, I haven’t had much trouble fishing with good current. Although they performed well in today’s flatwater fishing areas, like the large reservoirs I use for giant blue jacks, the hook design gave me a bit of a problem with hook ratio in slack water. I started having hook problems when fishing in areas with no current because the bait would not stay straight on the hook. Full circles were often double hooks on the chunk or live baits, causing me to lose a lot of fish. What would I do when I’m anchor fishing on a lake with a lot of slack in my lines due to the boat swaying in the wind? I went back to my old stock trebles and J-style hooks for quite a while.
Circle hooks are designed to hook the fish without the angler moving the rod much. Just leave it in the rod holder and when the line tightens and the rod bends, the pressure penetrates the hook into the corner of the fish’s mouth and the fight begins. I felt this was obvious in rip current areas, but tried to imagine how these specialized hooks were going to work on rip current lakes. I tried to imagine how a fish swims from the bait in a lake instead of a river. Without current, the fish could swim in any direction with the bait. Fish can swim into your boat or cross your boat, making it very difficult to hook a tight line with a circle hook. I heard about a year ago from other cat anglers that Daiichi came up with a modified circle hook that would work in all situations. If the fish didn’t swim away from the boat, the angler could still hook the fish! Last year I tried the new circle hook called the Circle Hook Lite.
After I started using the hook, I found out in no time that a quick jerk was not the ticket to manually hooking blues with circles. As soon as we started using a long sweep of the rod, we started catching fish that weren’t being very cooperative. Fish were moving toward the boat, away from the boat, along the boat, in every direction you can imagine, and we caught them just as well, if not better, once we learned good circle hook technique.
Anatomy Of The Circle-Hook Set
Once you notice that a fish has taken the bait and is not moving away from the bait and is not moving away from the boat and adjusting the line, raise the rod. Then reel in as much line as possible until you feel steady pressure from the fish on the end of the line. Once the point of the hook has started to penetrate, the hook and the fish will do the rest. It’s as simple as that. If the fish doesn’t offer much resistance, you can use a long sweeping motion of the rod to sink the hook.
Other benefits
The other good option the CircleChunk Light has is a bait stop tab on the shank to help with that nagging problem of double hooking the bait. There is no such thing as a perfect hook, we all have to accept the fact that sometimes the hardest hits never result in a hook, and some small sweaters result in a very deep set of hooks, but after using these hooks for one year. I am convinced that they work better than my old stand bys.
It was a pretty hard sell at first, I have to admit, but I’m glad I tried the circle chunk lite. I have used them in both current and slack or dead water situations. These hooks work the same wherever you fish. I feel good using hooks with such consistent performance, as well as being a quality, super sharp hook right out of the box. After years of testing all types of hooks, from large trebles to kahyles, I think the improved circle hook Daiichi has created is a fantastic choice for any angler.
Fishing done right is work, and the more you work on the perfect hook, the happier you’ll be with the reward at the end of your line.
Copyright © 2004-2005 Jeff Williams
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