Second time I used the same rig, but kept losing the bait (pippies and/or squid) without any hookups. But feeling the line, I could feel the nibbles. Since you apparently aren't supposed to strike with circle hooks, I moved to a long shank hook paternoster setup. I certainly started bringing in fish then. Many small, some large, but almost all leatherjackets. Got three keeper whiting in the end and kept 4 leatherjackets (my son likes them). Threw back probably double this number though.
One thing I noticed with the long shank hooks was I had a lot more fish unhook themselves when close to the yak. This never happened on circle hooks. Also, the leatherjackets definitely chomped off the line/hook a number of times with the long shank hooks. Also never happened on circle hooks. Started to get annoying actually. But with the long-shank hooks I definitely got a lot more initial hook ups by striking on the small nibbles.
A few questions:
- How do I select for whiting over leatherjackets? KGW was my target species.
- How could I convert those nibbles to hook ups on circle hooks? Would smaller circle hooks do it? Maybe a bit of bait holder thread?
- Is striking with a circle hook such a no no? Is there something in between, with good self hooking capabilities, but with which you can still strike?