Circle hooks have created a debate in last few years between anglers who fish rivers and those who fish lakes. When using circle hooks in rivers, I haven’t had much trouble fishing in good current. Although they performed well in current, fishing calm water areas such as big reservoirs I ply for giant blue cats, hook design gave me a bit of a problem with hook-up ratio in slack water. I began having hook-up problems when I fished areas with no current because bait wasn’t held straight on hook. Full circles were oftentimes double hooking back into chunk or live baits causing me to miss a lot of fish. What would I do when I am anchor fishing in a lake with a lot of slack in my lines due to boat sway from wind? I went back to my old standby treble and J-style hooks for quite awhile.

Circle hooks are designed to hook fish without much rod movement by angler. Just leave it in rod holder and as line gets tight and rod bows down, pressure penetrates hook into corner of mouth of fish and fight is on. I felt this was a no brainer in current areas, but I tried to picture how these specialized hooks were going to work in lakes without current. I tried to imagine how a fish swims off bait in a lake as opposed to a river. Without current, fish could swim in any direction with bait. The fish might swim at your boat or they might swim crossways with your boat, making a tight line hook up with a circle hook very difficult. A year ago I learned from some other catfishermen that Daiichi came out with a modified circle hook that would work in all situations. If fish didn’t swim away from boat, angler could still set hook on fish! Last year I gave new circle hook called Circle Hook Lite a try.

Once Jeff has picked his area by marking right bottom contour near thermocline and right space between fish and bottom, he is ready to deploy drift socks. Williams will usually only use on drift sock or “sea anchor” to set his drift at right speed and path. Some anglers use two anchors out side of boat but Jeff prefers to drift with socks either out front or back to get a more controlled drift. If wind is moving at a fairly good clip, Jeff will fish from front so wind doesn’t push his boat too fast. If wind is fairly slow, he will fish from back so wind has more of a flat surface to push on, thus speeding up his drift. Jeff notes that he will catch more fish if he speeds up or slows down drift when he needs to cover more or less water. Also of note is that matching speed of boat to activity level of fish seems to work best on certain days. “You just have to fish and vary your drift speed till you start hookin’ up with fish. I like to start with a certain drift speed and then go faster or slower from there.”

If Jeff is catching fish fairly consistently he will leave boat speed alone. If he goes very far without a hook-up and he is still marking fish on graph, he will slow down or speed up if he thinks it is necessary. On windless days, Jeff will use his bow-mounted trolling motor to create a drift.

Fresh Bait