Baitrunners - who still uses them?

[anthman]

Hi all, I enjoy all varieties of saltwater fishing including unweighted for whatever may cruise the mid and too water, to dragging baits on the bottom on a drift. 

Circle hooks are what I use 90% of the time.

Reading up, it seems circle hooks and baitrunners generally don't work well together due to needing a bit of tension to "roll" the circle hook to the edge of the fish's mouth. This seems to be whilst using a weighted rig, near the bottom.

A use for baitrunners I have read is floating baits down unweighted (which I normally leave the bail arm open for) - is this the primary use for baitrunners on the age of the circle hooks? 

I'm considering getting one but trying to figure out the use case!

Thanks guys!

[New Signing]

When drifting baits down unweighted or only slightly weighted i tend to leave the reel in gear using circles hooks. I find snapper which are the primary target for this style tend to engulf a floating or slightly weighted bait rather than pick at it and turn their heads effectively setting the circle hook themselves

[anthman]

36 minutes ago, New Signing said:

When drifting baits down unweighted or only slightly weighted i tend to leave the reel in gear using circles hooks. I find snapper which are the primary target for this style tend to engulf a floating or slightly weighted bait rather than pick at it and turn their heads effectively setting the circle hook themselves

Yah, that makes sense. So what's the use case these days for baitrunners? Live bait?

[marks1984]

yeah man I still use them I have a 6500B baitrunner on my Wilson live fiber 13 ft 6" beach combo best bloody thing invented.

[anthman]

1 hour ago, marks1984 said:

yeah man I still use them I have a 6500B baitrunner on my Wilson live fiber 13 ft 6" beach combo best bloody thing invented.

Good to know there is an application from the beach. What about via boat? 

[New Signing]

2 hours ago, anthman said:

Yah, that makes sense. So what's the use case these days for baitrunners? Live bait?

Probably still have a use if you are fishing with traditional suicide hooks or similar where you are looking for the fish to swallow it and you want to hook them yourself

[anthman]

Thanks all. Im not going to proceed - got enough reels that will do the job (with my use of circle hooks).

[Rob81]

Your other option which I used to use, was put a rubber band on the rod and then leave the bail arm open and put the line into the band to hold it. Just a suggestion if you want a free spool option. Only problem is strong currents can sometimes pull the line out of the rubber band and probably wont work on boats.

[Berleyguts]

Don’t forget... with a Baitrunner reel, you don’t always have to use the Baitrunner option. 😉

[marks1984]

2 hours ago, anthman said:

Good to know there is an application from the beach. What about via boat? 

I would say yes if you don't have circle hooks and chasing kings while trawling that could work