Circle hooks vs non circle hooks question?

Hey everyone! Curious what y’all thoughts on circle hooks are for live or cut shad fishing. Seems ppl either love them or hate them and after last few trips I’m undecided! Bite has been a little finicky at times and seems like we have had a lot of misses which has been very frustrating. Plus I take a lot of guests and successfully hooking with circle hooks can take a lot of patience, not being stubborn and listen to my instructions, and staying calm which many guests don’t do well at. I personally do pretty good at hooking the fish but still have misses. I’m about to start doing some experimenting with octopus circle hooks versus traditional octopus hooks. I want to see data on strikes, hook ups, and gut hooking/injury to fish. I usually catch and release but even if a few get gut hooked I love eating fish and could just keep that fish.

What are y’alls thoughts?

If you don’t reel when they inhale the bait they will swallow the bait thus resulting in a gut hook. Watch your rods.

Take all your circle hook. Separate em by size and brand and color if needed. Once that’s done, gather em all up and throw em in the trash.

I prefer offset circle hooks, as they seem to get more consistent hookups.

That’s what I’m wondering!! What do you use instead?

I have some that are slightly offset

Mustard 92553 octopus in 2/0-3/0. 90% or time its 2/0 for me.

Kahle # 2 or 3

I know Kahle is supposed to be a great live bait rig, especially for flathead catfish. Curious how they work for hybrids/stripers.

I've put 2/0 octopus hooks on 2/4 of my rods. I've going to do a handful of trips to compare 2/0 octopus circle hooks vs 2/0 traditional octopus hooks. I am almost certain of the results without even doing the experiment. Shorter learning curve/no learning curve with non-circle hooks, more successful hookups, possibly a few more gut hooked fish per x amount of fish which just means less choice in selective harvest for me when that happens.

I think 2/0 is about the perfect size too. 1/0 seems to bend easily when handling the fish in the boat and unhooking them while 2/0 is still small enough to put through the nose a small threadfin shad.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I look forward to seeing what happens in the next several trips comparing these two hooks!

Less “gut hooked” than you would think. I’ve had a very small ratio of gut hooks with the reg octopus. I don’t not use threadfins at all. I strictly use gizzards 6” and up.

Do you find you need to "set the hook" much? I figured descend shad down to target depth and the fish will grab the bait and hook themselves with the tension of the rod and reel drag without any hook set from myself or guests. Rather than with circle hooks we had to let them run with the line out alarm then slowly reel until the fish was hooked.

Personal preference really IMO. I have some customers that want to set the hook, and I have trips where the people would just rather put the rod in the holder. When using the larger baits, it actually cuts back on having to set the hook. The targeted larger stripes/hybrids usually hammer it and go on as soon as you hit the target depth. Sometimes when you find your self sitting on school of larger stripes, you usually don’t have much time to use the rod holder Anyway. It’s in your natural reaction to set the hook. But a lot of times they are already commited and it doesn’t change the outcome much.
This is my personal opinion by the way, in no way am I an expert. I just stick to what works for me

How do you hook larger shad. Kept getting take downs but the stripers never got hooked. I tried letting em run with it with the drag set light and the never took the rod out of the holder but the bait kept pulling out and reeling back a big dead shad with bite marks.

That’s catfish brother

Through the nostrils. That’s why I like the 2/0 hook, smaller diameter wire. I have some get bite like that on occasions. It’s either small stripes/hybrids, or catfish as mentioned above. It it happens more than 3-4 times in a spot with out any decent fish boated. You need to reel up and move

That’s what I figured. When they are fired up and you get ontop if them there is no need to hook set and as you mentioned, you can’t get to the rod fast enough to hook set it. By the time I get to rod they should be hooked.

Hit me up in a couple weeks, I can show you what I do, might help ya, might not.
Will have to be after june10th, waiting on new boat to arrive.

I have used both circle and octopus hooks. My preference is for octopus, non-circle. I have found if you leave rod in holder with reel engaged and drag properly set most hybrids will hook themselves with either type hook. I have very few gut hooked fish. Most are in corner of mouth or top lip.

I like to release the fish most of the time. I have gone to 3/0 barbless circle hooks. If they swallow the hook, it comes out with a simple twist of the pliers and doesn't tear them up. If I go to "J" hooks, I use 1/0 fine wire gold hooks. I always hook through the roof of the mouth. It keeps the hook from sliding through and twisting into the gill cover. More fish survive if you make just small changes to your technique of hooking the bait.

The original question is which is better? I have more hook ups "J" hooks but love the top of the mouth hook ups with circle hooks. When using big baits, it is appropriate to use much larger hooks. Most of the baits I use are 4" or less. My hook sizes are great for this size bait.

OK, that pretty much confirms my suspicion. The 20-22" stripers had no problems with the 4-6 inch shad and perch. Thank Ya Sir

I use straight circle hooks, usually a 3/0 but sometimes a 4/0. I use a Carolina rig using the lightest weight I can get away with and I usually use small perch when fishing for stripers because catching shad is a younger man's game. However, sometimes when rigging I put a small offset in the circle hook by bending the hook slightly. I honestly can't tell a difference in the hook-up ratio.

Yep, excellent striper/hybrid bait!

I use them all the time and don't seem to have a problem. I use a small number 4 Gamakatsu Octopus with 3-5 inch threadfins and a 2.0 with big shad and perch. It's a very rare case when using shad when the fish is not hooked. That said, I put the rod in a rod holder and loosen the drag to an extreme level where the line just sails out. The rod tip will still bend and the drag clicker on my spinning rods tells me that a fish is on. You are using bait so you don't need to be in a hurry. The fish is running with the bait and likely being chased by his buddies so he's not going to spit it out. Just calmly take the pole out of the holder crank the drag and set the hook.

Now if you use perch, sometimes the fish will drop the perch due to the fins. Had this happen allot this week where the fish would run with the perch for a while then spit it out mostly unharmed. Only happens about one out of ten but when I dropped the perch back down some fish ( likely the same one came back and took it again).Shad are just better bait.

Yes they are. I have had pure hell catching them the last two trips so I caught 15 perch to use just in case. This morning I was only able to catch 7 useable Shad, and when fished beside the perch, the fish took the Shad every time. When we ran out of Shad, we quit catching fish. For the record, these perch and Shad were hooked they the nostril with 2/0 Gamakatsu Octupus Circles.

TCK73: Once I bought a shad tank there was no going back to lures. Perch are better than nothing but shad 's the gold standard for bait. Once the Memorial Day crown leaves I'.m going up lake and catch some and see if I can't do some good. I'll be using circle hooks.

I totally agree! I’ve trolled and casted so much in the past with few hookups unless in the middle of summer. What made me a shad believer was seeing hybrids on sonar for a month or longer and not catching them. Did everything I could think of! After several trips, two hours into a new trip and getting skunked, I caught some shad and put them ontop of the fish I kept seeing and picking on. Within 60 seconds I had my first hybrid one followed by several more!

Been consistently having great trips ever since. I just purchased a 30 gallon blue water baittank and it takes the work out of keeping shad alive! It’s been crazy to see how great an area will produce hybrids then the next day nothing and I catch a bunch a mile away. Then the following day the first area is on fire again! Was super predictable for about two months and now I have to be on my toes a little bit and work to find fish!

I agree with that! That actually is what made me so mad at circle hooks the other night! I was fishing around lights and had tons of white bass move it and an occasional hybrid. I put down some 3-4 inch threadfin shad and had so many baits get bites and line out alarming then had very little luck catching the white bass. Only caught maybe every other fish to every third fish! Partly because I had a guest that would not listen to me and constantly would jerk the hook or reel as fast as he could but even myself had inconsistent results hooking up with the fish. But I could have moved if I were set on catching hybrids and didn't want to get my bait stolen.

It happens

Don't live bait fish much but I think I am gonna do it more when artificials quit producing. I really like to watch the rod tip start jerking from the nervous shad trying to get away from the stripers that just appeared on the graph then bam!!!! rod tip hits the water

Try that while drinking a cold beer

Excellent point!!!! Makes beer drinking a lot easier

I love it!!!! That twitching from the panicky shad is so exciting! The summers I can catch hybrids trolling with downriggers but have had terrible luck in cooler water temp (less than 75 degrees) with trolling. I know some still catch them then with artificials but then but I personally have such inconsistent luck. The nice thing about shad is you never know what you’re going to catch because everything eats shad! Even if you’re wrong about what you’re seeing on sonar you may end up having a great catfishing trip lol! Few days ago I hooked a four foot long nose gar that was mixed in with hybrids!