I went fishing this monday morning and had an excellent trip once I found the active hybrids at Fort Phantom! I did an experiment with two rods rigged with Octopus J style hooks and two rods rigged with Octopus Circle Hooks and was blown away by the results. All I can say is I am no longer using circle hooks and using octopus J style hooks until I feel that I am gut hooking too many fish! Check out the video if interested!



I am going to repost the video shortly....found a few mistakes I wanted to change really quick

Heres the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyD7A_VP0GU

I told you.

Throw the circles in the trash!!! Lol

Lol I did after this short experiment! I thought I was being conservative by using circle hooks but I bet if I did a 100 fish study for each hook the results would be comparable for gut hooking the fish but who cares!? I eatfish and will just eat those few gut hooked fish. Lol

It took soooo much more time and effort keeping the shad on my circle hooks because they kept getting stolen. I wonder how many strikes I really got and missed due to sooo much bait being lost! I�m a changed man after this experiment and look forward to way more successful trips with less frustration!

I have some of those octupus J hooks the wife picked up on accident, I may try them. I went from using those Eagle Claw bait holder hooks for a few years to the Gama Octupus and have had good results. I run the drag a little loose and keep the spool locked. The bigger fish will peel some line when they are in the holder. Sunday we had probably 12 bites and missed two fish. Some were hooked in the side of the mouth, others in the top lip. I also may try lake FPH for some Hybrid action, never been on it. It�s two hours away though.

It�s a great fishing lake once you figure out its secrets lol! I imagine most lakes are great once you figure them out though.

What do you fish

With either style hook but especially circles be sure your drag is tight enough to set hook when fish hits. Most hybrids will grab shad and run, tight drag sets hook. Too loose a drag will allow fish to spit hook. Again I prefer octopus hooks for live baiting hybrids and I snell hook. I have found snelled hooks result in more hookups at keast for me.

Mostly PK, I mix it up with a little Bridgeport action and Twok in the winter.

+1!

The only thing I use circles for is catfish.

I use circle hooks for larger striper but you gotta snell them.

I did snell these. Do you leave your reel engaged so the fish meets immediate tension or in line out alarm mode? I�ve tried both and if the hybrids are slamming the shad the immediate tension works okay but if they are finicky and not just slamming it it seems leaving it in line out alarm mode works best allowing the fish to swim just a few seconds before starting to reel.

Never use clicker.