All Circle Hooks Are Not The Same

I have been using circle hooks almost exclusively on Lake Norman since I release nearly all the fish that I catch. I really never took a hard look at the shape of the hooks that I buy because I never thought it made much difference.

Recently I have noticed that I and my fishing guests were getting an unusual number of drop off bites, meaning that the bite seemed strong but after a turn or two of the reel handle, the fish dropped off. A few of these drop-offs is normal but recently the ratio of catches to drop-offs was almost equal. This caused concern on my part so I took a good look at the hooks that I was using.

Because of the way I fish, I loose quite a few hooks and for some reason the stores have been out of the normal circles so I purchased what they had in stock. After taking a good look at the hooks I was using I theorized that the specific hook that I had was possibly causing the heavy drop-off rate. See the illustration below.

Ay first glance the two hooks look the same but they aren't. The right hook is the normal circle hook and the gape is nearly a perfect circle. The hook on the left has a s lightly offset gape so that the edge of that hook (c) causes that edge to be much further away from the parallel of the hook shaft (a). Notice that that distance (a) is nearly twice the distance from the shaft that the normal hook distance (b). This might not seem important at first glance but ass the hook is pulled up out of the gut of the fish, this greater distance (a) prevents the circle portion of the hook from catching the mouth of the fish and the hook simply pulls out of the fish. This is almost the same effect as jerking on the rod when retrieving the fish.

I purchased a complete new package of hooks and re-hooked all my rods. On my next trip my catch rate was 14 to one meaning that I caught 14 of the 15 fish that bit the bait. Doesn't seem like a very big difference, but the result kind of proves that sometimes the smallest thing can make a difference when bass fishing. It also shows that we are never too old to learn new things.