The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I have used circle hook both single or double in dead bait in both sea and pike fishing and find them great,
they hook well and dont slip at the last moment.
Because of the shape you may lightly hook the bait or live bait as they will not come off with ease.
And they un hook well, you can crush the barb with out loosing trust in the hook.
Wes

What is the waiting time to strike with circle hooks, should one leave it a little longer than when using trebles or is this poor practice?

with a sensible sized bait there should be little difference- I would rather connect immediately and miss the occasional (small) fish other than risking deep hooking

I used them for eels and can't fault them. Lobs I would kill first by throwing them hard on the ground and then chopping them into sections, these I would top with a bit of elastic band as well. Fish baits I used a strong braid hair and either thread through the eye sockets if head section is used or make a choke loop and put it over the tail wrist.
The most important thing is letting the fish run with the bait and once it's going ,slowly raise your rod and gently wind until it hoops over-fish on! On no account strike, it's unnecessary and could pull the hook clear of the quarry's mouth.
I also de-barb every hook and they come out very easily, which helps massively for eels. Small specimens I just raise them by the hooklink and use forceps to twist the hook out and it will plop back into the water.
I'm yet to try them for pike but see no reason not to.

I use Mustad demon circle in the 'fine' version or drennan super specialist, barb crushed always. I've had plenty of pike and zeds on them, hair rigged baits and when I've accidentally had eels when deadbaiting they have been far easier to unhook. No striking but I'm using braid, just lift into the fish. For eels I use smaller hooks and a supertresse or fluro carbon hook link, never bigger than an 8 for eels, Barry McConnal gives a good explanation why a larger hook is bad for eels and with a hair and circle I find they get lip hooked.