The philosophy behind the second paragraph of Dustin's post should be engraved on the bulkhead of every boat that goes fishing (in fact I might just do that). One of my pet peeves about how people view anything that is living (pot plants, people, marlin etc) is that they fail to understand that everything that happens to or around them occurs under the area of the normal distibution curve. Machines operate under a squre wave - there is certainty as to what is going to happen next, but not living things.
Life is not a game of perfect and marlin fishing is certainly not. Not that we shouldn't be trying our best to improve the odds, of course we should, but we are never going to achieve 100% (or O% for that matter) in any thing. I think that's what makes life interesting and worthwhile, but I digress mightily from '2 hooks or 1'.
obald
How come the world is such a screwed up place with so many sensible people appearing on one website? Obald you have to digress to progress, or we'd be talking the same crap forever! Roddy's too busy making all them lures that are gonna set the NZ marlin fishery on fire.
I have one more question on this topic and something I have asked before with no response. Stainless or not? If you are gonna cut the fish off then I say stainless, if you remove the hooks does it matter? Does anybody care?
Would you recommend a dehooker to an amateur fisherman?
I can remember an occasion this season when Mr Matt Watson came within a second of going over the side with a very large mako, it was a hairy moment, I don't think I saw the dehooker again.
Regarding stainless hooks the theory is they won't break down, like surgical instruments don't, therefore not ultimately poisoning the fish. I seem to remember seeing something along these lines on the LegendLures website (if you excuse my mentioning the competition).
Found it! 'Circles vs J's' - last post 12th December 2002 on this forum.
I knew we'd had Roddy talking about hook composition on this board sometime in the past and that is where you will find it. Well worth a read if you ignore the stuff I contributed. Although having said that I still stand by the vast majority of it. The cadmium bit was a mistake of school boy howler proportions of which I am deeply ashamed.
I look back on that time with some amusement now - I was well played by a mightier adversary.
obald
Obald...
can you please add a post to the thread in question to bring it back to the fore again....could be timely....cheers!
Kerren - done (I hope that is what you meant me to do)
The thread I referred to 3 posts back has been 'timewarped' to be on this page of threads - called 'Circles vs Js'
obald
I don't think using an unhooking device is that unsafe if you use the right one. I mentioned earlier that I like basically a spanner lashed onto the end of a broomstick to punch the hook out. I really don't like messing around with my hands in a fish's mouth with a two hook rig, it's got to be far more dangerous to either amateur or professional fisherman. I've seen those hook-out guns but I don't understand how they work and I would rather keep my distance from the fish. Just read the account of Peter Pakula's blue, I really hate to sound critical, but without a snooter it took three people to control the fish by the bill, at least one having to reach far out over the gunwale, and two got hurt pretty bad trying to remove the hooks even with a hook-out gun.
Also I guess the call on cutting the fish off should be made if for whatever reason the hooks are difficult to get out or the fish is too frisky. I like to get my painstakingly made hook rigs back whenever possible but safety has gotta come first. The risk of appalling injuries is very real, even on not so big fish. Anything that makes life safer for the poor sod who has to remove the hooks and control the fish by the boat is worth doing.
cheers - dustin
Hi Guys,
Have missed the bulk of this thread but if I could go back to page one and Dustins coments about the guys in Cairns not removing the hooks because of the danger involved in handling big green fish on wire - I agree but they are fishing in a largely release fishery, because of the distance to take a fish in and the heat - fish that are killed aren't even eaten and then there is the shark problen so these guys have to make a quick release for a number of reasons - So why the hell do so many of the boats use J-hooks and wire leaders, I have spoken to several anglers that were appauled to see gut hooked & bleeding blacks cut away with 20 ft of wire on them still. The boats that are using mono and circle hooks are catching just as many if not more fish and it is also a lot safer for the crew.
As for stainless Vs Galv - I like galves cos
1) they are cheaper
2) they are stronger (I have snapped a few stainless hooks on the wire)
3) thay sharpen up easier
AS for the welfare of the fish I haven't thought to much about it because like I said we would get the hook out 99% of the time with the exception of sharks, when targeting sharks we use circles so when we cut them away the galv circle should rust out from the corner of the mouth. A few years ago we got a nice blue marlin that had a galv circle in the jaw hinge already with about 4 feet of leader on it - the hook fell apart as I tried to remove it but it must have been in there for a while as the leader was covered in growth. Still the fish was fat and in excellent condition.
Personally I think one guy latching onto the marlins bill with cotton gloves and another guy punching the hook with heavy wiring gloves is easier on a frisky fish than trying to hold with a snooter & using a hook remover - THe incident that john a was refering to was when I was tring to rmove the hook from a big ole Mako and the hookremover locked onto the hookand the leader broke as it went beserk - not wanting to get a reprmand for loosing the precious hokk remover I held on and just as I was showing all on board the soles of my boots and I was just about to let go when the hook remover dislodged - all good fun until some one looses an eye!
Matt
Hiya Matt, the beauty of the snooter is that you don't need to hang on to it- once it's on the bill and tightened up, cleat him off, then pick up the hook remover. A lot of fish seem to really hate being grabbed by the bill, I think grabbing the bill by hand might interrupt/restrict their swimming action more than the snooter? I know at least one bloke who was hanging on to a fish when it shook its head and cracked a couple of ribs when it whacked him against the gunwale, not a big fish, either.
Re the stainless vs cad plated issue ; well, I'm happy to use either but I prefer stainless in that it holds its point better (arguably a moot point if fishing is hot, as they'll need resharpening after every fish/bite) and more user friendly. Cad plated hooks wrapped with tape and hook points protected with a combo of black marker with lanolin smeared over the point do stay acceptably sharp through the fishing day but need a bit of attention at the beginning of every day. For lures the expense is reasonably tolerable; for baits however if fishing is hot and you're cutting off a lot of fish or losing lots of baits to wahoos then the cost factor will start weighing much more heavily. As for strength, having seen a couple of Mustad 7732 hooks distorted, I'd go along with the belief that cad plated hooks are stronger, but arguably, I personally could/can live with that- I don't (indeed can't) pull that hard on the wire, and literally all the billfish we caught we intended to release, anyway. I admit it would really suck to lose a really significant fish like a world record or a super-grander this way, though.
cheers - dustin
Hello people,
Sorry for not being around for a while. Home life in upheaval and missing computer leads on travels affected communication. Back home for a while now until next week, anyway.
BOY, what a thread !! I did actually post a reply a few pages back but for some reason it disappeared from the page after a few minutes. I did ask Kerren about it, but he said not guilty. It doesn't matter anyway, as what I had to say was drivel as normal .....I think I was politely pointing out that I have never used a double hook-rig with the deliberate intention of hooking a marlin through two jaws at once.......Dustin said the same thing, which saves me time and saves you lot being bored all over again.
His paragraph (previous page) about hot and cold streaks is also very true. When the fishing is hot, and YOU are hot, then you can do some remarkable things. I know full well when I return to the briny after a stint away that the first fish up reduces me to fumbles and whimpers, crunching gearboxes, the obligatory dropped sandwich and unintentional switching on of horns/windshield wipers/indicators etc etc - you know how it is. You just can't quite get it right, can you - that damn mike swings around on the end of that curly piece of wire, hitting ya in the face, behind the head, on the ear - it's all so uncool. It isn't really until the fourth or fifth fish of the season that you feel as though you're in sync with boat and crew and can casually bring a fish alongside at 30 knots with one hand whilst punching in GPS co-ordinates with the other, a Monte Christo stuck jauntily in the corner of one's unshaven face as you do so (god, don't I wish....). Anyway, I digress as I daydream.
Keeren has gone googoo and asked me to say something because he thinks I'm a teacher..........sheer utter baloney, since teachers never should drink with their students and since I tend to get carried home by the deckies after a decent day that counts me out straightaway. If I've done something BAD like going to the wrong place or pulled a bunch of sh*te lures which produce no bites as marlins demonstrate their inordinate stupidity to other boats, well, then my crews leave me asleep in the chair, dribble slipping from the mouth, and they generally wake me in the morning with a large black coffee and a sharp blow to the back of the head and tell me I wasted a 'really good night'. Ahh, the joys of youth. Anyway...... I digress again.....
Hooks: I'll be blunt......no I won't, I'll be sharp..aw, what the hell. In my humble opinion :
1. Single hooks are safe.
2. Double hooks are good for big lures and beeg fish.
3. Stainless is good for fish if you care about them (just my humble opinion Obie, and I still don't know if you're huge or not).
4. I like the small hooks, same as Peter Montague does, whenever possible. 11/0's, 10/0's and 9/0's all figure in my hooksets, all of them 7732's. I tend to go with the ratio of hook to tackle, not lure (same again as Peter), and fish with 15 to 17lb of strike drag on both 80 and 130 (it's the same hook you're driving home), and then ALSO try and catch all my fish on that drag without altering it.........which about 80% of the time we generally tend to do, regardless of size.
Yes, there may be much smoke, authorised and calm orders (that's me), unauthorised yelling and hysterical screaming (anyone else), shards of metal ingressing into gearboxes (generally unseen but felt/heard), major problems with food underfoot (clients' peanuts are the worst as they make you slip, but chicken mayo sandwiches are GOOD, provide great grip and are still edible afterwards as long as your feet aren't smelly and the bread is something with some consistency, not plastic rubbish) , the odd repeatable curse (hmm.....not many of those) and the odd scratch mark across the transom, but on the whole if everything goes according to plan a fish gets released in pretty good shape (with or without jewellery) and the world is a pretty good place to be in unless you happen to be a card-carrying greenie who lives under toadstools and believes that Tolkien would be a great world leader. Which, of course, he would be, provided that he could initiate some world-wide scare involving chopsticks and mercury as the bows of many a rusty hulk slowly slip beneath the waves after meeting some fire-breathing dragons with AK-47 toting hobgoblins astride them.......[note to self: make sure you remember what this wine is I'm drinking. It's bloody good stuff, isn't it......what on earth is it ? Mmmm, those mushrooms are good too....]
Obald : can we have a game of Perfect when you're over ? Sounds good fun to me, although I am CERTAIN that I have scored 0% somewhere at some time. Were we playing Perfect then ? I also thought you ran out the winner in the earlier duel ????
JohnAngus : does it matter if we take the hook out or not. Good point, but then some of us do PING off now and again (very careful not to mention my name here) and so use of stainless is condusive to sweet dreams if the aforementioned scenario ensues.
Peter : good point about long de-hookers. We use a home-made SS thing attached to five feet of blunt broom-pole when possible. If all else fails chop hook off (as it's stainless and you'll sleep well), lose lure and order another from me pronto.
Matt : obviously a great chance here to raise some sponsorship for a message on the soles of your shoes. "BYE MUM" obviously not a great choice as the video rolls, but "READ NZ FISHERMAN" might be ?
Dustin : alas 'poor sod'. I know how you feel. It is very tempting to try and get the hook-rig back, providing the blisters on one's thumbs from making the damn thing allow you to, but, as you say, it takes a wee bit longer to replace an eye-ball than it does a bit of shrink-tube, two hooks and a bit of wire. Sound sense. Small fish may be more violent and quick, but an 800lb fish will take you 60 fathoms down without even thinking about it. You'll just last longer at the surface with a 100lb fish before thinking, "Damn, if only I'd done me soles !"
In conclusion, as I drain the last of this very good glass of grog and before they come to take me away [what is this stuff ? Damn it's good, must get some in for that Obald fella at Christmas time] safety first, lures second and circle hooks third. Bait should be banned really, and it probably will be one day. Mark my words.
Here's to the kids and may they always catch marlin too.
Roddy
PS: I didn't really type this. Someone else did. Own up now. Goodness, it's been a long, long week. Now, where's another bottl eof this stuff ?,,.,,hmm....hick *wear's that kerren fellas' e-mail......must rite an' say wot a grate site hes gotte, slurp, hKuclm
And a third gives it to the "aye's".......great post
Cheers
AC
Roddy, whatever that is you are drinking, can you please send us some! Excellent post, wow.
Just one thing though, on Matts soles as he goes over? I hope he doesn't have "NZ Fisherman Magazine" on the bottom as they (NZ FISHERMAN)have been taken over by NZ Fishing News. So, Matt, if you have already started engraving your soles, please amend before engaging in upside down photography.
Cheers Roddy, and mate, I do not envy you the hangover tomorrow morning!
Cheers, Stu.
Oh! Back to being annoying again, but have YOU heard of anyone running circle hooks in marlin lures before?? And would that be perhaps an option if fish were being tentative on the "take" of a lure, like picking it up and dropping it?
Hey fellas,
Sorry not to get back to you earlier Stu, took the kids to Longleat (animal safari park where lions and giraffes and stuff die of frostbite in mid-winter) today so this is the first visit to the computer ! Thanx for the kind comments about my post last night. I must make an appointment to see my psychiatrist again soon by the looks of things.
Circle hooks whilst trolling : yep, I've played. Nuff said ? Ya don't want the gory details, do you ? Well, didn't get a bite when we tried, so the result sheet stayed untouched ! However, I don't actually think that there will be much difference between circles and standard hooks (be they 7732 style or 7754's or whatever) if you fish them the light clip/big dropback/ softly striky marlin approach. This I have done. 1995 in Madeira and Dana Boardman broke his hand. Since I was down to a rookie Madeiran as crew we simplified the fishing for a while and pulled four softheads with single hooks on clip-tight riggers with a big drop-back (and wind-ons with deckie cutting fish off when within reach so he didn't do a Watson through inexperience). Went something nice like 17 for 22 in two weeks, then Dana came back on board with arm in sling and we went back to normal. Quite why we changed everything around when we were having a golden patch is beyond me and I blame it on the drink.
To put it bluntly, I don't think using circles or finding a way to use them while trolling lures is going to improve the hook-up ratio of anyone. Everything happens at such a pace back there at 8 knots or so that it really is best to keep things simple. If it was me I would concentrate more on improving traditional methods and refining one's own ingredients in the recipe for success before cutting one's head off and trying to re-invent the wheel so you can get covered in glory. More often than not glory-seekers come back covered in sh*t. Been there, done that, had the bath.
That's just a thought. May change it later of course !
Roddy
PS: of course, should you happen to discover a unique way of using circles in lures that maintains a 100% hook-up ratio (or better even), then get back to me as quick as poss Stu. WITHOUT posting anything here, okay ? Wink wink, nudge nudge.
PPS: should the above mentioned actually happen, you can bet a few bottles of something pleasant that quite a few wiremen will learn quite quickly that circles don't open up or break. I can see it now - "Capt. Asparagus' UNIQUE SHOE-SOLE TATTOOING PARLOUR - FREE CLEAN UNDERWEAR FROM YOUR CHOSEN SPONSOR"
hahahahah....
excellent .... Thanks for your thoughts on the circles too, greatly valued as you have actually given it some thought in the past... me, it was just this vague buzzing sound in the back of my skull.
Or maybe that was the bats in the belfry....
Do you think the is much of a market for Fishing Brand-Named underwear then do you?
cheers,
Stu.
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