Hi again guys
Today I used circle hooks (4/0 I think) for the first time while fishing for largemouth bass with minnows as bait. The bass in my local spot tend to swallow bait super fast, I thought this would help prevent gut hooking.
I managed to catch three bass, and didn’t miss any (I was worried lol)- and all of them were hooked in the mouth so so far great results. My only question is there something I can do to reduce the amount of times they get hooked in the joint of their jaw like in the pic? It seems like it causes some extra damage. 2/3 fish had the hook end up here. Was I just unlucky or is this common? I may be grabbing some barbless hooks shortly, but for the barbed ones is there something I’m doing wrong? Or is it not really a big deal
Posted by SableGlaive
3 Comments
That’s how a circle hook works.
I’ve always just taken pliers and flattened out the barbs on all of my hooks. It makes my life easier taking fish off, and it makes situations like this less damaging. With bigger hooks, the barb just cracks off. It’s a habit I picked up while fly fishing smaller streams and I don’t feel like I lose more fish because of it.
I don’t know if there’s anything you can do on that. Maybe if you got 500 and 2/3 we’re like that you’re doing something wrong but I’m not sure you’re controlling it.
That being said I think your concern comes from hoping the fish is okay and to that I say if you ain’t eating the fish don’t be using barbs. Crush them with plier or buy barbless because you rip a barb out wrong through that part of the fishes mouth and it can be a death sentence to them.