Losing fish due to pulled out hooks.

[PowerFisher]

As being fairly new to rock fishing, I have been losing on average 50% of my Kingfish on pulled hooks, in the beginning I was being busted off using lighter tackle and leader but after upgrading the leader this has been sorted, My setup is braid and heavy flurocarbon leader, which I know has no stretch.

I use size 5 Gamu Circle hooks or size 5 Gamu octopus J hooks for the bait I am using and this never gave me any Issues of the boat which offcourse you can adjust the drag ,so not as much pressure on the fish. The location I am fishing has rock ledges and structure so I don't have the luxury of giving the fish some drag at all and I know this is the main cause of the pulled hooks. But was hoping for some opinions to make that percentage lower. I had 3 hook-ups today and 3 x pulled hooks its starting to get annoying.

[sydangler]

what bait are you using??

but if you are pulling hooks try swtiching to a heavier gauge live bait hook and maybe bigger sizes, i run between 5/0 and 12/0 for kings and unless im just having fun on light line i always use live bait hooks. hope that helps.

[Krispy !]

Maybe you need to give the fish abit more time to take the bait down, kings sometimes just swim off with a livie just holding it in its mouth, if you strike too early you'll tear the hook out or they usually just hold on to the fish until you bring them up and they will spit the live on the surface

[rockfisherman]

As being fairly new to rock fishing, I have been losing on average 50% of my Kingfish on pulled hooks, in the beginning I was being busted off using lighter tackle and leader but after upgrading the leader this has been sorted, My setup is braid and heavy flurocarbon leader, which I know has no stretch.

I use size 5 Gamu Circle hooks or size 5 Gamu octopus J hooks for the bait I am using and this never gave me any Issues of the boat which offcourse you can adjust the drag ,so not as much pressure on the fish. The location I am fishing has rock ledges and structure so I don't have the luxury of giving the fish some drag at all and I know this is the main cause of the pulled hooks. But was hoping for some opinions to make that percentage lower. I had 3 hook-ups today and 3 x pulled hooks its starting to get annoying.

Yes it would be frustrating...

I use circle hooks when live baiting and always have the drag up quite firm. If you're using a circle hook its obviously ending up in the corner of the mouth 9 times out of 10... How long are you waiting before you pick the rod up? You said you didn't have the luxury of giving much drag... Are you picking the rod up to quickly?

Backing the drag off a bit and and giving it about 3 seconds longer might be an option... It's a small risk to take to set the hook right AND not all kingfish head for cover...anyhow you can always crank up the drag once it feels like its really on.

Fishingphase

[PowerFisher]

I am Live baiting, what's happening is that I loosen the drag like a bait runner, completely loose so to give time for fish to swallow fish and run off, the smart buggers instead of going out wide, they run towards the rocks automatically this is when I tighten the drag full, the fish is directly under me and one on one fight and pulling the hooks is happening when the fight is directly under me before even getting it to the surface can see the fish running left and right with the 2-3 metres of line left in water. I think I definitely should try giving more time for the fish to swallow the bait before starting the fight and give the Live bait hooks a go. Which Hooks to use Circle Live bait hooks or Standard Live bait hooks.

Also Would changing the braid to Mono to give some stretch help or would I start losing more fish due to stretch.

[sydangler]

live bait hooks are just a heavy gauge J hook, im sure if you look around you will find some heavy gauge circle hooks maybe made for tuna or marlin. my king fish rig off the rocks is dead simple 40-80lb braid or 50lb mono on my TLD/LBG combo with at least 5m of mono trace attached with an FG knot straight to my hook then tie on a balloon. nothing to catch in the reef and very few points that can fail.

match the hooks to the fish you are chasing as well as the bait. ive lost good kings to the same problem and once i upgrading my hook size i stopped pulling them. maybe try running a mono leader rather then a FC (save a few bucks too) that will give you more stretch.

[PowerFisher]

Will be trying larger hooks for my next session and some mono leader , appreciate everyone feedback very helpful.

[tentonner]

You can buy wind on leaders which cost about $15 for 20 feet of mono but give an awesome connection to your double and help reduce pulling hooks with the extra stretch in mono

[sydangler]

wind onleadersin my opinion are a huge waste of money. learn to tie the FG knot which will connect you braid to your mono and you can choose you length easily. then your $15 will get you 50m of leader rather then 7m (roughly 20 feet).

[tasksta]

Ill prob get flamed for saying but i never use circles after losing so many fish.

We had an awesome rat bite going a few weeks ago and i lost four fish! These were all solid hooked and after a few runs 'dropped' the hooks.

Switched to hoodlum j's and no issue, maybe its my technique but defo were not working out for me.

P.S. you are doing well to hook three kings!

[elferoz777]

LOL I wish I hooked up a king to say I am losing 50%.....50% of zero is still zero and I been trying my luck on the rocks for a yr now...

[PowerFisher]

I have been on couple of trips since and have now tried live bait hooks and larger circle hooks.

I have noticed that the Live bait hooks are working better and have landed some decent salmon between 60-70cm and even my pulled hook percentage was so much lower.

The advantage of the circle hooks is that the leader is most of the time out of the fish mouth as mostly hooked in the jaw and can save you losing fish especially on tailor and the rough sand paper type mouths of kingfish and salmon with tight drag. But main issue is that the fish tend to go so much harder on the fight since there not as much pain with hook not injuring the fish but this also gives it more room to keep fighting and more pressure required to catch and since you can end up losing fish with hook tearing out.

With the Live bait hooks which I will mostly be using from now on, I have noticed if hooked inside of the fish mouth sometimes way down the fish fight is a lot less when you are using heavy tackle and they lose stamina so much quicker as I have been bringing them to the surface half the time as previous.

Still though majority of my fishing that is not on the rocks where I can use drag to tire fish the circle hook is amazing and my majority of fishing will be using circles.