A few more bass - East Cork/West Waterford 23-25th April

[RockHunter]

Thanks guys,

How do you find the circle hook any advantage.

Not a single missed bite, most of the fish cleanly hooked in the corner of the mouth. I am totally converted!!!

[lucky13]

fair game frank.nail on the head,as per.well done man,seriously sucessful fishing as always.

[caseys]

Great report and some lovely fish well done.

[tommo]

Well done. You are some asset to this site for a more novice angler. For those of us who blank more often than not, reading your reports helps keep the fires lit to keep at it!

[bustlingrio]

Nice one lads

[Camcolite]

Thanks guys,

Great to see the Bass starting to hit the beaches well done frank ,what size pennell hooks are
you using .

Normally I use 4/0, put scaled back to 2/0 for the pennels.
Also used size 1 for the flapper rigs, circle hooks.

hey just wondering if you could give a critique of the circle hooks, is there less deep hooking etc..

[RockHunter]

hey just wondering if you could give a critique of the circle hooks, is there less deep hooking etc..

I have only recently started to use them but so far I find them excellent.
I have had no missed bites (apart from small fish that were just nibbling on the bait)
Most of the fish have been cleanly hooked in the corner of the mouth and a few in the roof of the mouth.
All bass I have caught with them were cleanly hooked. I did had a few small flounder that had swallowed the smaller circle hooks (size 2) but that's flounder for you, they will just lie on the sea bed swallowing the bait regardless of the hook.

My only problem with them is that they restrict the size of the bait - I normally like to use big baits when bait fishing for bass, 4 or 5 large lug on a 4/0 hook, but its more difficult to present big baits on a circle hook.

However, when fishing one rod with a big bait on a 4/0 pennel pulley using "J" hooks and a second rod with smaller circle hooks, the circle hooks have resulted in a much higher catch rate.