Circle hooks is a specific type of fishing hook that employ a curved shape to catch fish. The point of a circle hook curve back toward the shank of the hook in a near-perfect arc. J-hooks are design to stab into a fish when the hook is deployed, but circle hooks are designed to rotate into the corner of a fishs mouth when the fish take the bait.
When a catfish take the bait, the fish will typicaly swim away with the fishing line. However, the circle hook will slide around the inside of the catfish mouth. When the tension on the fishing line increase, the circle hook will rotate so that the point of the hook enter the corner of the catfishs lip.
How to Use Circle Hooks for Catfish
With this design, there is no need to yank the fishing rod upward to set the hook. With conventional fish hooks, doing so can lead to the hook tearing out of the jaw of the catfish. The design of a circle hook prevent this from happening to the catfish.
The correct size of the circle hook must be selected to ensure the hook work correctly when fishing for catfish. The gap between the shank and the point of the hook are one of the main considerations when sizing the hook. If the gap of the circle hook is too narrow, the hook will not work proper on large species of catfish.
However, if the gap is too wide, smaller species of catfish will not be able to mouth the bait effective. The wire thickness of the circle hook is another consideration. The thickness of the wire determine the strength of the hook.
Using a circle hook with heavier wire allow it to take the head shakes of large catfish. However, using such a line will dull more quick if the circle hook encounter rocky bottoms in the river. The size of the circle hook also depend on the species of catfish that will be targeted.
Channel catfish is of a medium size so a circle hook of a similar size to the head of a channel catfish should be use. Blue catfish are much larger so you should use a circle hook with a larger gap to accommodate the massive mouths of the blue catfish. Because flathead catfish eat their prey whole, slightly smaller circle hook work best when using live bait to attract flathead catfish.
The size of the circle hook should be matched to the species of catfish that will be targeted. The two main types of circle hooks are inline circle hooks and offset circle hooks. An inline circle hook is perfect straight-aligned so that it hook the fish in the lip.
Because the inline circle hook is less likely to hook the catfish in the throat, the hook is useful for catch and release fishing. An offset circle hook has a point that is nudge outward to hook the fish in the gut so that soft baits like chicken liver remains in place on the hook. However, because it is likely to hook the catfish in the gut, it isnt as good for catch and release fishing as the inline circle hook.
If the goal is to avoid harming the caught fish, it is best to use an inline circle hook. Alternatively, if the goal is to have the soft bait remain in place, the angler should use the offset circle hook. The success of using a circle hook depend on the ratio between the gap of the circle hook and the width of the mouth of the target fish.
The gap should be three-quarter of the width of the mouth of the catfish. If the gap of the circle hook is too large for the mouth of the catfish the fish will not be able to ingest the bait. If the gap of the circle hook is too small for the mouth the hook will not be able to rotate into the corner of the lip of the catfish.
Using a circle hook require maintaining steady pressure on the fishing line. Jerk the fishing rod will prevent the hook from rotating into the corner of the lip of the catfish. Using steady pressure and the proper size of circle hook for the species of catfish will result in the angler successfully catching more catfish and losing less catfish.