Circle hooks on Cranks

[SM1]

Anyone ever tried this? I saw it on a FL based fishing show. Intent here was to decrease hooking mortality from treble hooks.

Seems like it would work, maybe not as good as trebles though.??

[Scott M]

Seems like that's taking it a little far. In the literature, most walleye hooking mortality comes from live bait rigging when fish swallow the bait on the pick up, not artificial lures.

I won't be in any hurry to change mine out.

[redhooks]

A better alternative might be to go barbless on trebles and use a limber rod to keep tension on the fish. I've seen this work well on big lakers.

[zepman]

Sounds like a good way to miss alot of fish if you ask me.

[Black_Bay]

You will get very few hook ups if any. The method for hooking fish with circle hooks is to let the fish take the bait and allow the fish to turn or even take the hook deep then put steady pressure on it. A standard hook set will result in lost fish. I don't see them working on crankbaits at all.

[Chode2235]

Yeah I dont think it would work well, and if it did you might be making a non-problem into a problem. I use circle hooks on live bait rigs and tip ups and find that they can be a pain to remove. I can't imagine having to get a mouth full of those out of a fish in a timely manner.

Do you have a youtube link to the show you mention?

[TwoBear]

Out west they often take off the two treble hooks and add a single open-loop, siwash hook to the back hook-eye. They do that on some of the C&R only rivers for trout/salmon. I have heard claims of greater hook-up with this method. I will actually be trying this on the St. Croix this year. I'm going out next week to see if the change in hooks affects the action of the baits. We'll see if I miss more fish (or less). I'll report back when I see how it works.

TB

[TUMBLEWEED]

Bend down the barbs on the existing hooks

and keep a tight line.

[SM1]

We used just one larger J style hook on our plugs for King Salmon in Alaska. Seemed to be what all the guides were using.

The circle hook thing on cranks doesnt seem to popular here in MN, must be a Florida thing.