NCsaltaire

Isn’t It Time for Circle Hooks

October 11, 2011 at 8:10 pm Leave a comment

Several years ago, here on the Outer Banks, I would watch dozens of fish get wasted – just left on the beach to die. At the time, many of the anglers would try to catch as many fish as possible. They never considered the impact of over fishing.  And even less about returning this resource back into the water to be caught again. This resource was unlimited so they thought.

Although, many times anglers did try to practice conservation and consider releasing them only to find that the gear they were using caused deep gut hooking. This gut hooking caused significant damage to internal organs and would cause them to bleed out quickly. With a reduced survivability, these fish were just left on the beach to either be eaten by the birds or rot in the sun.

The culprit was “J Hooks”. These hooks were designed to increase the hook ups. Once you feel the bite, the angler sets the hooks and bingo, you are successful. But they decreased the survivability rate.

Recently, there has been a movement to change to less damaging gear. The circle hooks meets that goal.

I have begun to use circle hooks on almost every gear set up. And guess what? I haven’t reduced my catches at all. In fact, I am catching more fish and releasing most to be caught again. You will find that most of my catches are with circle hooks. Check out the Black Drum I caught the other day using circle hooks. See how it just grabs the corner of their mouth?

Is there a place still in fishing for “J hooks” – sure but careful selection and use is imparative. Common sense plays a major role with their use,

Isn’t it time you jumped on the conservation fix? Our fisheries are not unlimited, and if you are not harvesting one to eat, release it to be caught another day. I think that is a pretty neat concept. How about jumping on that bandwagon with me? Future anglers will thank us for our commitment to this fishery.

Until next time,

Tightlines

Entry filed under: Home, Places, Reel Job. Tags: beach, boating, cape hatteras, chesapeake bay, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, nags head, outer banks, salt water fishing, surf fishing.