Circle Hooks For Smallmouth Bass

Circle hooks are now becoming popular with catch and release bass fishermen.

Circle hooks for smallmouth bass. For smallmouth and largemouth bass fishing the most appropriate sizes will be sizes 4 2 1 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 and 6 0. Big difference in lip hook ratio. When you get a pick up tighten the line to the fish then reel fast to set. Correspondingly if too small it will miss large fish or be more likely to be swallowed.

If you use an off set circle you can defeat the purpose of using this design of hook. I use the gama s red 1 0 inline circles for wacky rigging senkos. Unfortunately there is a lack of any standardization as to circle hook sizing from manufacturers. They re found in sizes 1 0 and 8 0 in the heavy wire and sizes 8 through 1 in the area of light wire version.

The smallmouth will inhale the nightcrawler then most likely turn away from the place where it sucked in the bait. Better than 90 are lip hooked. Circle hooks work because fish often move after they pick up a bait or lure. When used in the right way they don t result to bass swallowing the bait and resulting gut hooked.

When fishing live bait for largemouth and smallmouth bass i use gamakatsu octopus circle and eagle claw circle style hooks in sizes 2 1 1 0 and 2 0. Results have been great. There are circle hooks and then there are true circle hooks. I have used circle hooks for late fall smallmouth bass live bait bite they work fabulous most every fish is lip hooked unless of course you wait too long to set the hook by that i mean once the pickup if felt open your bail give a 10 20 second count depening on how aggresive the particular specie you are after are.

Say a smallmouth bass grabs a nightcrawler rigged on a circle hook. What is the best size hooks for smallmouth bass. Of course the size varies depending on the technique you re using and fish hooks that are smaller or larger than this range are sometimes used. How to fish using circle hooks and soft plastics.