Don't be tight...upgrade those trebles!

[jack2964]

I was out fishing Lam Chae dam over at Khon Buri for Krasoob/Jungle perch a few days back and it was really hard work.

Very few bites and the sun was merciless. Nearing the end of the day I felt a vicious thump and was very pleased to see the rod bent nearly U-shaped.

Didn't last though-a few seconds into the fight and it all went slack.

The cause: Failed treble.

Lesson learnt, I'm upgrading every single lure to stronger hooks. You just can't trust those stock trebles.

[jackinbkk]

I've upgraded my trebles on lures in the past. Bought a whole load of mustads cheap.

What's supposed to be even better is fitting a single circle hook. I don't fish lures enough to try it. Once a circle hooks a fish you'll pretty much never lose it. As there's a constant pull (fish moving away or lure being retrieved) the circle will engage. It'll take faith to try it but it'll work!

[impulse]

Just upgraded a few lures with 4x strong trebles. Problem was, the trebles cost more than the lures did here in BKK. 50 baht lures and 30 baht (x2) trebles. Bought the topwater lures in Chinatown because I have visited the factory where they're made in China- and the owner was very kind to me.

One other tip- I increased my landing percentages by a noticeable margin when I started sharpening my hooks a few years back. Commodity hooks out of the box just don't penetrate like a hand sharpened hook. If I can drag it across my fingernail and it doesn't stick, it's not sharp enough.

[jack2964]

I've upgraded my trebles on lures in the past. Bought a whole load of mustads cheap.

What's supposed to be even better is fitting a single circle hook. I don't fish lures enough to try it. Once a circle hooks a fish you'll pretty much never lose it. As there's a constant pull (fish moving away or lure being retrieved) the circle will engage. It'll take faith to try it but it'll work!

I am not aware of 'circle hooks' till your mention here. At my local tackle shop there isn't any and the only ones I found are with that big online store based in BKK. Think I'll order some just to see if they work. Thanks.

[jack2964]

Just upgraded a few lures with 4x strong trebles. Problem was, the trebles cost more than the lures did here in BKK. 50 baht lures and 30 baht (x2) trebles. Bought the topwater lures in Chinatown because I have visited the factory where they're made in China- and the owner was very kind to me.

One other tip- I increased my landing percentages by a noticeable margin when I started sharpening my hooks a few years back. Commodity hooks out of the box just don't penetrate like a hand sharpened hook. If I can drag it across my fingernail and it doesn't stick, it's not sharp enough.

Good quality trebles are pricey, pack of 6 costs about 300Baht while lures I use are on the average 250 to 300 baht each.

[jackinbkk]

Just upgraded a few lures with 4x strong trebles. Problem was, the trebles cost more than the lures did here in BKK. 50 baht lures and 30 baht (x2) trebles. Bought the topwater lures in Chinatown because I have visited the factory where they're made in China- and the owner was very kind to me.

One other tip- I increased my landing percentages by a noticeable margin when I started sharpening my hooks a few years back. Commodity hooks out of the box just don't penetrate like a hand sharpened hook. If I can drag it across my fingernail and it doesn't stick, it's not sharp enough.

Always keep a good file with you to sharpen the hooks before a session. You may find they corrode more quickly though so wiping off water after you finish can help or rinsing them of fishing saltwater.

[jackinbkk]

I've upgraded my trebles on lures in the past. Bought a whole load of mustads cheap.

What's supposed to be even better is fitting a single circle hook. I don't fish lures enough to try it. Once a circle hooks a fish you'll pretty much never lose it. As there's a constant pull (fish moving away or lure being retrieved) the circle will engage. It'll take faith to try it but it'll work!

I am not aware of 'circle hooks' till your mention here. At my local tackle shop there isn't any and the only ones I found are with that big online store based in BKK. Think I'll order some just to see if they work. Thanks.

The only thing that will be difficult will be getting the right size. Circle hook sizes differ widely from J hook sizes and even between manufacturers.

This is not a bad demo of a lure with circle hooks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0_MBY_m92Q

Picture of a lure with circles:

http://ep.yimg.com/ay/tackle/yo-zuri-r994-sashimi-minnow-f-circle-hook-lure-3.jpg

Edited April 8, 2014 by jackinbkk

[mogandave]

Owner stingers...

[jack2964]

Thanks for sharing the youtube link.

With circle hooks the experts say to refrain from striking which would be hard to put in practice as it's a natural response once a fish has taken the lure.

I wonder if the fish might spit the lure once it knows it has bitten on hard plastic or timber.

I'll go get some circle hooks and see how I fare.

[impulse]

Thanks for sharing the youtube link.

With circle hooks the experts say to refrain from striking which would be hard to put in practice as it's a natural response once a fish has taken the lure.

I wonder if the fish might spit the lure once it knows it has bitten on hard plastic or timber.

I'll go get some circle hooks and see how I fare.

Circle hooks are usually used on live and dead bait, where the fish will keep the bait and not spit it out. They drastically reduce gut hooked fish while increasing the percentage of hooked fish landed.

If they are now being used on hard lures, I'd be surprised. But I've been surprised before.

[jackinbkk]

Thanks for sharing the youtube link.

With circle hooks the experts say to refrain from striking which would be hard to put in practice as it's a natural response once a fish has taken the lure.

I wonder if the fish might spit the lure once it knows it has bitten on hard plastic or timber.

I'll go get some circle hooks and see how I fare.

Circle hooks are usually used on live and dead bait, where the fish will keep the bait and not spit it out. They drastically reduce gut hooked fish while increasing the percentage of hooked fish landed.

If they are now being used on hard lures, I'd be surprised. But I've been surprised before.

You'll find that with a lot of lures the act of retrieving the lure and the fish grabbing it and moving away, it'll get hooked right away. Even on a popper fished with a pause, the circle hook only has to get into the fish's mouth to be primed for a hook hold.

I replaced some trebles on a lure of mine last night with some circles. A local lake (Here in the UK) has so many pike in the margin that it should be easy to experiment as a side line when targeting some carp. I tell you what. It has been a few years since I've tried to get hooks off and on to split rings. What a nightmare. Destroyed my nails, took me a good 45 mins just to get the job done. I could have asked my wife to help me but it was about 4am.

I'll post up a picture later.

[jackinbkk]

Thanks for sharing the youtube link.

With circle hooks the experts say to refrain from striking which would be hard to put in practice as it's a natural response once a fish has taken the lure.

I wonder if the fish might spit the lure once it knows it has bitten on hard plastic or timber.

I'll go get some circle hooks and see how I fare.

I use circle hooks all the time. Great for catfish, even sharks. All you'll find is that as soon as you get a take, the line will go tight. You don't need to jerk the rod. Thee hook will set itself. Just play the fish as you would. Keep the line tight. The circle will just set better and better, the more tension it experiences. All the stress goes into the curve of the hook rather than just the tip. It is extremely difficult to lose a hooked fish. Hook holds will 99.9% of the time end up in the side of the mouth between the top and bottom lip, called the scissor.

[jack2964]

Thanks for sharing the youtube link.

With circle hooks the experts say to refrain from striking which would be hard to put in practice as it's a natural response once a fish has taken the lure.

I wonder if the fish might spit the lure once it knows it has bitten on hard plastic or timber.

I'll go get some circle hooks and see how I fare.

Circle hooks are usually used on live and dead bait, where the fish will keep the bait and not spit it out. They drastically reduce gut hooked fish while increasing the percentage of hooked fish landed.

If they are now being used on hard lures, I'd be surprised. But I've been surprised before.

You'll find that with a lot of lures the act of retrieving the lure and the fish grabbing it and moving away, it'll get hooked right away. Even on a popper fished with a pause, the circle hook only has to get into the fish's mouth to be primed for a hook hold.

I replaced some trebles on a lure of mine last night with some circles. A local lake (Here in the UK) has so many pike in the margin that it should be easy to experiment as a side line when targeting some carp. I tell you what. It has been a few years since I've tried to get hooks off and on to split rings. What a nightmare. Destroyed my nails, took me a good 45 mins just to get the job done. I could have asked my wife to help me but it was about 4am.

I'll post up a picture later.

I have this tweezer like tool specifically made to work on split rings. Sure beats using a thin bladed screw driver to coax the ring apart but still can be fiddly and many times the ring slips off and launches itself into orbit never to be seen again. I found mine at a tackle shop not sure what the proper name is and there are various sized 'tweezer' for the many sized split rings.

[jack2964]

Thanks for sharing the youtube link.

With circle hooks the experts say to refrain from striking which would be hard to put in practice as it's a natural response once a fish has taken the lure.

I wonder if the fish might spit the lure once it knows it has bitten on hard plastic or timber.

I'll go get some circle hooks and see how I fare.

I use circle hooks all the time. Great for catfish, even sharks. All you'll find is that as soon as you get a take, the line will go tight. You don't need to jerk the rod. Thee hook will set itself. Just play the fish as you would. Keep the line tight. The circle will just set better and better, the more tension it experiences. All the stress goes into the curve of the hook rather than just the tip. It is extremely difficult to lose a hooked fish. Hook holds will 99.9% of the time end up in the side of the mouth between the top and bottom lip, called the scissor.

I'll find out when I get some of these circle hooks. The constant retrieval and action imparted while retrieving should work I would think. The bonus is the lure is less likely to snag as with trebles but these hooks are pricey and hard to find. That online store only has stock of 4/0 and larger which may be too big for my 7cm lures. They cost 360B for a pack of 8 before mailing cost.

[jackinbkk]

Thanks for sharing the youtube link.

With circle hooks the experts say to refrain from striking which would be hard to put in practice as it's a natural response once a fish has taken the lure.

I wonder if the fish might spit the lure once it knows it has bitten on hard plastic or timber.

I'll go get some circle hooks and see how I fare.

I use circle hooks all the time. Great for catfish, even sharks. All you'll find is that as soon as you get a take, the line will go tight. You don't need to jerk the rod. Thee hook will set itself. Just play the fish as you would. Keep the line tight. The circle will just set better and better, the more tension it experiences. All the stress goes into the curve of the hook rather than just the tip. It is extremely difficult to lose a hooked fish. Hook holds will 99.9% of the time end up in the side of the mouth between the top and bottom lip, called the scissor.

I'll find out when I get some of these circle hooks. The constant retrieval and action imparted while retrieving should work I would think. The bonus is the lure is less likely to snag as with trebles but these hooks are pricey and hard to find. That online store only has stock of 4/0 and larger which may be too big for my 7cm lures. They cost 360B for a pack of 8 before mailing cost.

I didn't manage to take a picture last night.(For a hook size comparison.) Had a few things come up. When I lived in Phuket the supercheap store had some circle hooks. I'm sure places like Seven Seas at BSR have circle hooks as well. I think the tackle shop that used to be located on On Nut had some, so there's probably a lot of tackle shops stocking them. Ebay may be an option. That's where I have to get a lot of mine as I live in the UK, Midlands. Circle hooks haven't caught on (oh that's a pun!) for freshwater fishing yet.

I'll do a size comparison. Mustad are often good. Most circle hooks tend to be used for saltwater species. I think the Japanese invented them for long lines.(Hooking tuna, swordfish etc on unattended rigs) self setting, easy to remove and release bye-catch alive. You'll find that if you drag a lure along the ground the trebles will snag on everything. In my case a carpet. A circle wont so there's less snagging. They are also great at not sticking in your fingers, but I highly recommend removing the barb. I remove barbs on all my hooks. If it goes in your hand it'll come out easily. If you keep lines tight a fish wont throw a debarbed hook, but a circle is far harder to shake than a regular J hook for a fish.

I love them as you can probably tell and I'd never go back.

Edited April 10, 2014 by jackinbkk

[jackinbkk]

Hi,

so again this morning I am rushing out the door when I realise I haven't had the time to take a picture, but I grabbed the lure rod and all the things I need to go fishing after work.

The evenings here in the UK are bright now until after 8pm. This little lake I know is about a 40 minute drive away. The last few times I'd been there I could see jack pike in the margins. They'd actually shoot out from the margins into the deep like bullets as you walked down the lake. Them seeing you before you see them. I brought the all important lure with the circles on it.

Annoyingly I walked the place and couldn't see a single pike. Just my luck, I cast around the margins every 10 yards or so. Eventually I came back up the lake and continued casting around.

I was close to deciding to leave it until tomorrow when low and behold a little jack pike grabbed the plug right at the reeds. The good old circle hook, found the mark and didn't let me down.

It was actually a strange hook up from what I'm used to with a catfish but he couldn't get off. I grabbed my phone to take a picture. In the mean time the fish was rolling around on the bank so he may have moved the hook around a bit.

Here I have a picture of the plug with the circles on it.

I put a 5 baht coin for a size reference. The small treble hook I have is from the bulk box of them I have on the right. Marked as a size 6 here in the UK. The larger 2 trebles are the ones I took off the lure. The circles on the lure are size 4/0 mustad demons. Fine refers to the light gauge wire used to make the hook, Heavier gauges (thicker hooks) are often used for bigger catfish and sea species.

I put the 4/0 mustad next to a 3/0 Gamakatsu circle hook. As you can see sizes vary widely between manufacturers. The important factor is the gap between the hook point and the hook shank. It must be wide enough to set in the fish's mouth. For a giant snakehead the same hook would probably work.

So one attack by a pike and one hook up. Can't do better than that!

Edited April 11, 2014 by jackinbkk

[jackinbkk]

By the way. I bought that lure in a tackle shop in Bangkok on my last trip over. It was in a reduced bin for about 30 baht. I thought that'll do for some UK fishing when I get back. Much cheaper than buying one in the UK, so no excuses.

Edited April 11, 2014 by jackinbkk

[jack2964]

Good job and thanks for the pics. Is that a Rapala lure? For 30Baht I would have cleaned out that bargain bin. A typical Rapala is around the 250B to 300B range.

I live out in the sticks so I'll have to buy online and I normally get stuff from 7seas but being Songkhran now all services have shut down for the festivities.

I'll try some size 4/0 Gamakatzu first.

[Robby nz]

These are not the true circle hooks which I used extensively in NZ for bait fishing, they are normally referred to as recurve hooks.

With the true circle hooks if you strike at a fish the hook will just pull straight out of the mouth, the fish must hook itself, usually in the corner of the mouth by swimming away with a bait.

I have never used that type of hook on a lure but used to say in NZ that the best place for a treble hook was on the bottom in the deepest water possible.

My lure fishing then was mostly jigging for yellowtail kingfish, all tag and release, a treble would be very difficult to get out of a fishes mouth without doing a lot of damage hence I used strong single hooks

So far here I have stuck with the trebles that have come with the lures I use, would like to replace them with singles but so far haven't seen anything suitable.

[jack2964]

7seas online tackle store has given their website a make over but it is a pain to navigate now. Unlike before, one could pick a category e.g 'Hooks' or 'Lures' and then you have the option to view by brand. That doesn't work anymore and their search function returns items you aren't targeting. I gave up after a few minutes and went over to Ebay and Aliexpress and I am overwhelmed by the different types and shapes of circle hooks-and along comes Robby (very welcomed) to muddy the waters...lol

Anyway, I'll choose some similar to what Jackinbkk used in the photos.

[jackinbkk]

These are not the true circle hooks which I used extensively in NZ for bait fishing, they are normally referred to as recurve hooks.

With the true circle hooks if you strike at a fish the hook will just pull straight out of the mouth, the fish must hook itself, usually in the corner of the mouth by swimming away with a bait.

I have never used that type of hook on a lure but used to say in NZ that the best place for a treble hook was on the bottom in the deepest water possible.

My lure fishing then was mostly jigging for yellowtail kingfish, all tag and release, a treble would be very difficult to get out of a fishes mouth without doing a lot of damage hence I used strong single hooks

So far here I have stuck with the trebles that have come with the lures I use, would like to replace them with singles but so far haven't seen anything suitable.

These are circle hooks in every sense of the word mate. The point is curved back pointing at the shank.

I use curved hooks for carp. Like these, which are not circles. A curved shape but the point not being 90 degrees to the shank:

I have all kinds of circle patterns for cats and sharks

Big cat circles:

Larger Circle down:

Carp hooks (A lot of the curved patterns are popular now):

Edited April 12, 2014 by jackinbkk

[impulse]

These are not the true circle hooks which I used extensively in NZ for bait fishing, they are normally referred to as recurve hooks.

These are circle hooks in every sense of the word mate. The point is curved back pointing at the shank.

Probably true today, but not 10 or so years ago. Today's legal definition of a circle hook is a hook with the barb perpendicular to the shank. That wasn't always the case,

It changed when some areas started requiring "circle hooks" by law, and had to come up with an enforceable definition of circle hook. Then, manufacturers rushed to fill the niche by modifying normal hooks to meet the definition.

Here's the original "circle hook" as used by commercial fishermen- back when I was importing them from China and Korea for sale to US Gulf Coast sport shark fishermen:

Great for bait fishing, but probably not a good choice for a hard lure.

Edited April 13, 2014 by impulse

[jackinbkk]

I think it's just that you find many long shank and short shank variations these days. Where in the past the shank was obviously short.

[jackinbkk]

For example

It looks a bit odd