circle hooks

has any one had goog luck using circle hooks with worms for small stream brown trout trying to find a way to avoid hooking them deep

Past post about circle hooks

That is all I use! As long as you do not let them take it too long they will not gt hook. I use a size 2 Gama Octopus Circle.

They work just fine.
I think the key to trout survival is, cut the line and re-tie if the hook is not on the edge of the mouth. If you have to use a tool to reach into the mouth the survival rate drops IMO.
I like to use the high VIS yellow line when trout fishing and I’ve caught many fish days after I’ve released them with my yellow line and hook in there mouth. They claim it only take a few days for them to dissolve the hook out.

my 2 cents

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They work just fine.

I think the key to trout survival is, cut the line and re-tie if the hook is not on the edge of the mouth. If you have to use a tool to reach into the mouth the survival rate drops IMO.

I like to use the high VIS yellow line when trout fishing and I’ve caught many fish days after I’ve released them with my yellow line and hook in there mouth. They claim it only take a few days for them to dissolve the hook out.

my 2 cents

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Last summer I caught a catfish that should have weighed about 7-9 lbs based on dimensions… after thinking something was funny about it, I weighed the fish and it came in around 3. When I was taking it off the hook, I noticed that someone’s line had broke off, leaving the hook embedded in the back of the fish’s throat.

Another fish I caught, a 17″ rainbow at a local trout pond, had a #14 trout hook in its stomach, intact, and it’d been there long enough that it was starting to ulcerate and had almost perforated the stomach lining.

The thing couldn’t eat and it had been in there long enough for the fish to drop 2/3 of its body weight…

I am extremely distrustful of this notion that hooks just dissolve and the fish will be fine. If you can’t get the hook out without hurting it, chances are good that the fish is a goner no matter what you do. At the very least make sure your hooks are steel, not stainless, because that fish will be a fossil before stainless even starts to dissolve.

IMO

I have dabbled with circle hooks this summer. They work a little better and are not perfect. If one is deep hooked I do my best to carefully remove the hook. No yanking. It is surgery. If the fish is bleeding good and legal I will keep it. With circle gut hook rate is still 15% or more. Yet I often fish to eat so very little waste.

I also believe unless you buy some really crummy hooks today’s hooks do not rust out. If the hook is really burried I cut the line at the mouth, again keep if I can do so legally.