Vineyard Sound

[LeeG]

Three bass landed in an hour of fishing on Sunday morning on the north shore of the Vineyard. We got there just in time to see the tide stop but the fish hit whole hearing almost immediately-1 keeper and 2 shorts.

We missed a ton of hits using circle hooks. Any advice on how to make circle hooks more effective? I love that they hook in the jaw 9 out of 10 times but I hate the missed fish.

[shawn]

lee
i've noticed that i have a better ratio of hook-ups if i
don't set the hook, but rather tighen the drag and let the
line get very taught before i set the hook. If you just set
the hook when the fish grabs the bait you'll more than likely pull the hook clean out of the mouth. but letting the line get tight it will automatically turn the hook in the corner of the jaw, resulting in a good hook-up. it is
a hard thing to learn but it will benifit you

[daveb]

Lee is right about not settting the hook. Just let the fish run a bit then close you bail and start reeling the fish will hook itself. You also may want to check the gap, lots of circle hooks while bulky have too small a gap. Though I don't bait fish much I find I have a decent hookup ration with circles.