Fishing A Circle Hook With Live Bait

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Fishing A Circle Hook With Live Bait





 

[Introduction]

0:30 Announcer: Saltwaterfishing247.com helping you catch that fish of a lifetime.

0:39 Blaine: Alright, we just pulled up to one of my favorite rock piles here. We're losing the tide. So we've got right up on top of these boulders. We're kind of flat out here surrounded by big rocks and the stripers are hiding right in around the structure here. And the way we present the bait to them, right now we're in 26 to 30 feet of water. We have a rig that's called a three way. And what this does is get sizable baits down into that stripe zone. It keeps it down there. These happen to be corgi or scup, which in Connecticut they have to be 10 and a half inches in length. A lot of people think that's way too big. I've got an 8 O circle hook on here with 50 pound Seaguar fluorocarbon. 

1:26 Blaine: And I hook right through the back here. Make sure you don't have any scales on the tip of the hooks to prevent a good hookup here. And then to that our fluorocarbon leader runs to a simple three way swivel. I've got my mainline on one and the dropper loop on the other. My loop here allows me to put different size weights on. I can literally just take this eight ounce right off. And if I need a heavier weight, say it's a 12 or 16, we're fishing deeper water and stronger current, I can slip it right back on here, just makes things real easy to adjust to the changing conditions.

2:08 Blaine: Then once we've got our rig, rigged up and baited up, all we're doing is dropping down the bottom here. Again we at 26 feet of water. I like to have my rod tip right at the edge of the water so the second that weight hits the bottom, I can clamp my thumb down and lift this up out of the rocks. Then I close it. I take two turns of the handle and I come back down to the rod parallel off the water because lifting the rod tip up and two turns of the handle, this is going to get us about five feet off the bottom which is where we want to be with these bigger baits.

2:41 Blaine: We don't set the hook on this. The really cool thing about using bait like this that you feel the porgy struggling to get back down to the rocks. And that's like ringing the dinner bell to some of these stripers. They sense that commotion; they come. And our fluorocarbon leader runs to a simple three way swivel. I've got my mainline on one and the dropper loop on the other. My loop here allows me to put different size weights on. I can literally just take this eight ounce right off. And if I need a heavier weight, say it's a 12 or 16, we're fishing deeper water and stronger current, I can slip it right back on here, just makes things real easy to adjust to the changing conditions.

2:08 Blaine: Then once we've got our rig, rigged up and baited up, all we're doing is dropping down the bottom here. Again we at 26 feet of water. I like to have my rod tip right at the edge of the water so the second that weight hits the bottom, I can clamp my thumb down and lift this up out of the rocks. Then I close it. I take two turns of the handle and I come back down to the rod parallel off the water because lifting the rod tip up and two turns of the handle, this is going to get us about five feet off the bottom which is where we want to be with these bigger baits.

2:41 Blaine: We don't set the hook on this. The really cool thing about using bait like this that you feel the porgy struggling to get back down to the rocks. And that's like ringing the dinner bell to some of these stripers. They sense that commotion; they come. And this bait will really telegraph what's going on. You'll feel him swimming and then when the striper gets closer, he's going to really pick that pace up. And the really cool thing is it lasts 10, 15, 20 seconds of that before the striper finally catches up to it and whack, and your rod goes down in the water.

3:10 Blaine: Because we're using circle hooks, we're not setting the hook. But with a sizable bait like this, you do have to give it just a little bit of time for that striper to get the entire bait in its mouth. So I like to have my rod a good five feet off the water so when I do get hit, I'm not giving any pressure on the rod; I'm not dropping the tip; I'm letting that striper pull the rod tip right down to the edge of the water. Once that tip gets down to the water we just kind of ease up into the reeling position.

Blaine: If the fish isn't there, freeze. He's going to come back. He'll hit it again and again and again until you've either hooked him or he's ripped the bait off the hook. There's no hook set. Braided line with no stretch, circle hook, it's a beautiful thing.

3:53 Blaine: Good fish, Jeff.

4:03 Blaine: Mine just got hit. 
 

4:16 Blaine: Alright, bring the rod tip over this way. Get right up to the, without wheeling the swivel in

4:23 Jeff: Yep.

4:32 Blaine: Nice fish.

4:40 Blaine: Just keep the rod tip tight.

4:42 Jeff: Yep.

4:43 Blaine: Keep some weight on it. (fish splashes) Somebody else caught this fish

4:53 Jeff: Yeah, huh

4:54 Blaine: And broke it off. There's a, that's what happens when you don't tie a good knot. We'll get a swivel here and nothing on the other end of it. And this fish, even though he was gut hooked deep, was still able to feed with no issues. Here's our hook right here, circle hook right in the corner of the mouth where it should be. Right out like that. Beautiful thing. No pliers. No nothing. And this fish weighs...that is 34 pounds.

5:29 Blaine: As you saw, Jeff just had a really nice fish using a circle hook. Circle hooks in my opinion are the only way to go these days. A lot of people are still hesitant to change from the old style J hooks and trebles. They feel that they're not going to get the hookup ratio with the circle hooks and I found once you get over that learning curve of not setting the hook, giving that fish just enough time to grab that bait, you're going to do just fine.

Blaine: As we said earlier, with our rod tip about 5 feet off the water, when we get hit by this fish we're allowing them to take that rod tip right down to the water and ease into that fish. There's no hook set. Even with these big baits, Jeff's going to hand me a good size scup here, 10 and a half to 12 inches in length. I'm going to show you how I rig mine.

6:15 Blaine: Because of the way these fish feed, they live in the rocks, they feed on mollusks and all kinds of hard crustaceans, they've got a very hard bony mouth. So it's difficult to run a hook up through the bridge of the nose here without doing any damage to the fish. 
 

Blaine: So what I like to do is take that circle hook and run it just in front of the dorsal, through the back of the fish like this, pop it out the other side. Make sure you don't have any scales on that hook that's going to prevent a good hookup here. We clean that off when it's good to go. We just drop it in. It hangs nice and natural in the water. The only way to go in my opinion.

6:53 (baited hook splashes into water)

6:57 [Closing]

7:20 Announcer: Saltwaterfishing247.com helping you catch that fish of a lifetime.

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