Circle Hooks

[fishing bum wannabe]

No hook rusts out in a couple of days! The fish are impaled through the throat and the point is some 3/4" deep from the shank. On top of that most of the fish anyone catches are undersized and have to be released. I don't often react this way, but anyone that believes that he has to deep hook every fish so his potential trophy won't get away is ignoring the science that a healthy percentage of deep hooked fish don't make it. Try sticking a 6/0 or 7/0 hook down your throat and impale yourself. You're a hell of a lot bigger than a bass. Bet you're off to the emegency room in a panic to get it suriclely removed rather than cutiing the line and waiting for the hook to rust out, waiting while you to slowly bleed to death. I've landed any number of 20 - 35# bass with circle hooks, virtually all hooked in the corner of the mouth. I keep bass to eat, but all fish that size get released by me. I don't need to drag a dead carcass down to the local bait and tackle to prove how good I am. I have a nice scrap book of pictures of fish that lived to spawn another day to show off. I beleive that circle hooks should be mandatory for bait fishermen. And yes, I fish bait. I have also 2 50s to my credit, both on artificials (one on a homemade swimming plug). One was killed, I was on a charter where they kept everything. The second was from the beach. We measured and weighed her, she bottomed out our 50 # Chattilon scale, and we released her.