How Much Hook Tip Should Be Showing?

[hcwang]

Hi raiders,

Always wondered how much hook tip should be showing? A decent amount or should be mostly buried within the bait?

Also, with circles, the hook tip points down into the bait. Is that a problem? I've always thought a fair bit of the hook needed to be exposed so it could lip hook the fish.

I thought maybe as a fish bits onto the bait it will expose the hook (sorta like how weedless rigs work), but what if the fish just scoffs your bait whole? Then when you strike it'll just pop out of its mouth right

cheers!

[monch]

My understanding is as follows:

Here is the anatomy of a hook:

J-Hooks:

leave a good portion of the point showing, and try to keep some of the gap between the point and the bait. With soft baits you can afford to "bury" the hook in the bait abit more, therefore exposing less gap and the fish might not notice it as much. You should still always try to expose the point of the hook though.

Circle hooks:

Firstly, do not strike with circle hooks, you have to let the fish run with the bait and swallow it. As the line tightens, the baited hook then slides up and out of the mouth of the fish and the inward pointed point of the circle hook catches onto the lip/jaw/corner of the mouth of the fish on its way out of the mouth and hooks the fish. Because of the design of the circle hook, you cannot strike with it, otherwise the hook will just fly out of the mouth of the fish and miss its mark. Yet, this is also the advantage of using circle hooks, theoretically you will never gut-hook the fish, and all hookups (if they occur) should be in the corner of the mouth - assisting with the release of the fish.

In terms of baiting a circle hook, you have to leave a large portion of the point exposed and people say that you should only pin the hook through the bait once. You might be able to get away with pinning it twice in a softer bait, but try not to bunch the bait onto the hook.

[hcwang]

very well explained monch

thanks a lot!

I think i may have been burying the hooks too much before. I tried threading the circle through a bait and then leaving it exposed J hook style. Hard to hookup like that though. Cheers