Ocotopus circle hooks

I’ve been using octopus hooks for most of my fishing for a few years now. I grabbed two things of octopus circle hooks on the way to the river the other night by mistake. Two trips out I’ve lost big fish and missed a few runs. Does anyone us this type of hook are there any advantages?

I was ready to give up on stink bait in general after trying a few different brands tell this past week the channels have been on a terror. Sonny’s blood formula has been what’s working this week. Do you guys use any other brand that’s carried locally?

bowkers or cut shad
#5 circle hooks-leave the pole in the holder until it doubles over. You can not set the hook or you will miss. Good thing is they are hooked in the corner of the mouth nearly every time.

After years of experimenting with different hooks and different sizes, I almost exclusively use octopus circle hooks. I use 8/0-10/0 for live bait rigs for flathead, 3/0-7/0 for cut bait for channels and sturgeon. I even use them for live bait rigs while pike fishing … Tip ups and under floats. They’re very versatile, and they work for me.

I have been finding if the fish aren’t exactly hitting the bait hard circle hooks just dont work to well compared to your regular octopus. If they aren’t turning with the bait no way a circle is gonna cut in. If they nibble at it need regular style to get them in the lip or elsewhere.

Octopus circle are not a true circle design, they’re a hybrid of both types. The offset shank and wide gap allow you the option of setting the hook in a traditional sense (which I almost always do while running live), while still maintaining the self-setting function of a true circle while tight lining.

I agree with nick. Circle hooks are the way to go. I use gammi 8/0 octo circles for even the biggest of live baits and rarely miss fish. For big bullheads i use 2 8/0 circle hooks rigged like a quickstrike and barely even stick the hook through the skin on its back so when you feel the fishes wieght and lean the rod back it pulls the hook out of the baits skin and into the corner of the mouth of the cat.
The octo circles IMO seem to work the best with a snell knot.

I was running a sport trotline with my two kids over the 4th of July week. The trotline had 24 hooks. The hooks appeared to be about a 4/0 J style hook with a big eye for the heavy nylon cord. I swapped out 8 of the hooks with 3/0 or 4/0 Gama octopus circle hooks to see if our catch rate would increase. I baited the hooks by threading 1/2 of a crawler on the hook. I didn’t keep a log or anything, but I’d estimate half the fish we caught were on the octopus circle hooks whereas the law of averages would say that only 1/3 should be on the circle hook. So based on my not so scientific experiment, I’d say that, on a trotline, the circle hook increased your catch rate. We were mostly catching 1-3 lb channel cats and 1-2 pound sheepshead.

The kids like checking the trotline… something exciting about pulling the boat forward along the line and feeling the line tug and seeing it zig zag in the water and knowing there’s a big fish on it. And like my boy says, you don’t have to do the boring part…. i.e. waiting for a bite.

Boone

How’s your folks doing in IA Boone?

I think channels and sturgeon were made for circle hooks.

Went 4 for 4 with the regular octopus on top.
Went 0 for 2 on the octopus circle last night.

I like to fish the “regular” Gamakatsu Octopus hooks, although I will fish them like a circle when the rods are loading up good and just burn the reel rather than swinging for the fences.

Haven’t done as well with the circle type hooks, although I may not have given them that much of a try.