ga, I did some fishing on Sanibel/Captva Island (I have a son and daughter that live and work there in separate locations) in Fl last week and used the circle hook for the first time. My son set me up and we were fishing for snook (sp) as well as redfish and others. We were using live bait with the circle hook and I think I lost the first3 snook that hit the bait. I had a tendency to "set the hook" and missed every time by pulling the hook out of the snook's mouth.

My son explained what I was doing wrong and he told me to "salute" the fish while holding the rod. This worked every time. The snook I caught (some 40+ inches) fought like heck and every one was hooked on the side of the mouth, making it easy to release with no affect on the fish....Had I not done that type of fishing in FL, I probably would never know what a circle hook was....