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Looking for some opinions from the cat guys who drift for blues. I missed several possible tourney winning fish over the weekend and a good cat fisherman told me I may have had a couple more hooked up if I snelled my hooks. I use the 8/0 octopus circles (offset eye) and palomor knots. He thinks the palomar on the offset hooks are not a good combo. Any thoughts?
I to have heard this before but we never use circle hooks either. I don't like them and neither does riverrat12 because they will sometimes cost you fish. Fishing with him for about four years now we have never gullet hooked a fish yet with regular hooks, just my opinion.
Yes what Mark said, We use 9\0 catcatchers, and 9\0, 10\0 True turns with a palomar. Now the true turns will get an eye sometimes. Chuck
I guide for cats and I use the Mustad, Demon Wire..Circle hook, 10/0 and I snell mine. My hookup ratio is about 98% and this is with clients who sometimes dont know how to fish a circle hook, i.e..Let the fish load the rod..
I leaning toward thinking it had more to do with the new rods I was using than anything. You need some bounce in your rod for the fish to load with the circles and I brought out the heavy gear I use for anchoring in fast current with up to 16 ozs of weight.
I will be snelling from now on too.
Lowerider...A heavy rod is the circle hooks worst enemy..You need a rod with some play in the tip. Give me a PM and I will tell you what rods I use, and where you can get them at, as I am not sure I can do that on here..thanks warren
[QUOTE=Lowerider;373391]Looking for some opinions from the cat guys who drift for blues. I missed several possible tourney winning fish over the weekend and a good cat fisherman told me I may have had a couple more hooked up if I snelled my hooks. I use the 8/0 octopus circles (offset eye) and palomor knots. He thinks the palomar on the offset hooks are not a good combo. Any thoughts?[/QUOTE]dude! you didnt miss any fish, the fish werent committing to the bite! i also had a few massive take downs this week end with now hook ups, ive been driftin for bout 10 years now and ive seen this alot! you just cant catch them all! they were playing wth it! i call it a (slight bite) the fish arent active but you drift it by there face and they play with it, they swim off with only the bait and not the hook, if the fish is feeding you will hook up with the circle hooks, no matter what rod you got or how you tie it! altho the snell is the better option!
good luck
[QUOTE=Trophycats;373484]I guide for cats and I use the Mustad, Demon Wire..Circle hook, 10/0 and I snell mine. My hookup ratio is about 98% and this is with clients who sometimes dont know how to fish a circle hook, i.e..Let the fish load the rod..[/QUOTE]
I was looking for the recent thread on snell hooks and found this one. Great thread. Especially after just seeing riverrats and fishnounds photos on the photo forum.
Well and clearly said...."Let the fish load the rod".
Wow, pulled this one out of the archives! I guess I've been snelling for 4 years now...ha!
[QUOTE=Lowerider;521554]Wow, pulled this one out of the archives! I guess I've been snelling for 4 years now...ha![/QUOTE]
If you use the two different search features you will find a ton of info. on here from the past. Some things never change too!
I tried all snelled hooks last weekend and liked what I found. No fish got off (they usually don't anyway) and many were hooked in the top of the lip vs what could be anywhere in there. Another few weeks and I should have a for sure opinion on the snelled hooks. Easy to tie and they look cool too!
"From the archives"
palomar knot for me....no reason to change. extremely high hook up ratio, very low lost fish ratio. also i can tie it in total darkness just by feel, and i can tie it very quickly. the knot strength is extremely high.
i dont dislike snelling hooks, i just havent found a convincing reason to change what works......for me.
p.s. 100% circle hooks (once again personal preference) for me. but one thing is for sure, it is all about the rod action/tip. no action and no room to load up on the rod has the same effect as setting the hook with a circle hook....it doesnt work most of the time. for me the most positive aspect of the circle hook is when multiple rods go down trolling for stripers you can fight one fish at a time , net the fish, grab the next rod and so on and so on without worrying about getting a good hookset at all the rods not being tended to immediately.
once again, just my personal preference for the style of fishing i do, nothing against straight j hooks or snelling, whatever gets em in the boat is what i say is best !!
The Snell Knot is probably the very best knot out there for tying a hook. The "in-plane" relationship that your fishing line has in relation to the hook's shank is what it's really all about. Snelling a hook gives you this in-plane relationship that's critical for hooking up successfully each time out.
The problem I have with ANY knot that you tie directly to the hook's eye is that the knot/line will actually rotate and move all around the eye of the hook and it will eventually cost you hook ups on big fish. Snelling a hook is actually pretty cool to even be able to do, it takes some practice to do it right. I usually go about eight wraps when snelling with lighter line and five or six wraps with heavier line.