last season, livebaited my first skipjack, after 20 mins had a hit, was by myself, so i put on the tracing glovesand gimble belt , boat idling forward, line pissing out for what  seemed like abot a minute i guess, took the rod out of the holder did the drag up , didnt strike just wound hard out, took up the pressure, had the fish on for a couple of minutes, then it spat the bait.

The bait was bridle rigged, with the tuna cicle hook sitting out about an inch or so in the front of the nose, when i got the bait back the hook was embedded in the skipjacks head,

the hook was attached like u would to a lure , not like a puka rigg with the loop around the shaft to make the hook curve upwards.

A FEW QUESTIONS

was the way i attached the hook a factor?

the way i rigged the bait

the fact i didnt realy strike (thought u didnt need to with tuna circle)

how much line do u give them?

or was it just bad luck?

any tips for live baiting much appreciated thanks

tamure nui

case case of bad luck methinks!!....Sounds like there was plenty of time for the fish to engulf the bait, turn and for the circle to find the jaw hinge!...Did you gradually push the drag up or go straight to the button?

out of curiosity, what area where you fishing in ?

Did you use a dacron loop and a docking-ring to create bridle?

Was the size of the hook matched to the size of the bait?

Was the hook and offset design?

I will take a photo of the terminal tackle I would employ when live baiting and we can compare notes if you like?

Hi Tamure Nui

Now that's what I call Game Fishing, livebaiting by yourself.

Whenever we've livebaited, our rig has been similar to yours. When the livie gets taken, we let it run for 10-20 seconds and then gently ease up the drag. mind you, we've dropped a few too. Sem to get a good hook-up rate with J-hooks but gut hook too many.

like Kerren said, tell us the whole story - would love to hear it.

tamure nui

I use circle hooks a lot for my bottom fishing (because it is deep) so also use them a lot when game fishing.

When live and dead baiting gamefish from a drfiting boat we have tended to resist the urge to strike for as long as possible.  We had great fun last year on some big makos near Mayor Island while on holiday.  We waited out the initial run (and turned off the ratchet once we had picked up the gear - noise annoys me, so figure it transmits to the fish too) and then gve the fish time to move away again before slowly (over about 10 seconds) doing up the drag with no strike whatsoever.  We hooked 6 out of 7 fish that picked up a bait (6 makos that day - played with them, shot some video of wicked jumps and let them go).  I think a minute was long enough to let it run, particularly as you had the fish on after doing up the drag. So no problem there by me.

We were using whole blue mackeral around a kilo and kahawai of similar size that day.  Hooks were 15/0 and 16/0 offset tuna circle hooks, some bridle rigged, some just hooked through the nose.  This looks really big beside the bait, but I reckon you need a big hook using tuna circles, if you choke them (not so applicable to a bridle rig), they tend not to hook up as reliably.

As for the trace connection, I rig my livie traces as you did, with a connection as for a lure.  I always rig tuna circles back around the shank for bottom fishing.  I also always use offset hooks, as I think they hookup more reliably, but have no real hard data on that, it works so I do it.

My guess is that this was more bad luck than anything.  Hook embedding in bait was probably your undoing.  Maybe a really tight bridle or hooking the bait directly would hep with that??  Maybe the way you tie the bridle??? Just some ideas.

Matt B