I am not going to say that I could have been a contender, but at one time in my life, as well as I am sure most men my age we thought we were destined for “Big Show”. I mean Baseball was our world. I remember all I ever wanted to do was get out of school and play. I would do anything I could to get my brothers to throw me a ball but when they were busy I would throw ball as high as I could running up street and pretending I was Willy Mays or Mickey Mantle. I would make up games and lineups for my All - Star teams and if I missed ball as it came back to earth, then that player would be a base runner. I used to throw ball at curb and bounce it off and try to field it. Again if I missed, batter would advance. These were my childhood games and they taught me basics of playing Baseball. There was never a time that I can remember when I didn’t have my Jim Davenport glove or Stan Musial one as I got older.

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.