Circle hooks versus J hooks

I know the issue of J versus circle hooks has been settled with numerous studies showing the high mortality. MVF funded a study back in 2003 with John Graves from VIMS showing that one third of all white marlin caught with J hooks died within 1 week. He employed pop-up psat tags to obtain this data. NMFS came out with a ruling earlier this year to ban J hooks from any billfish tournament on the East Coast. Unfortunately the reaction from the multi-million dollar tournaments forced NMFS to postpone the new rule until 2008. It is hard to change your fishing techniques after years of success. Circle hooks force captains and mates to learn to rig differently: no more flashy skirts, islanders or seawitches... makes rigging baits boring, to say the least.

I must be honest and say we use both circle and J hooks on the Makara and have resisted eliminating J hooks from use especially in the dolphin tagging study. The pictures posted in an earlier blog of the dead sailfish, and Billy digging the J hook out of his gut moved me. I hate change just like everybody else, but either we quit fishing or we change our ways. We cannot kid ourselves that our boat's fishing tactics do not make a difference. They do. We need to change how we fish to protect the fish.

The waters off Cancun and Isla Mujeres are full of fish. There is less fishing pressure now: no live bait allowed except by local captains and the use of circle hooks have ensured the highest survival rate of migratory billfish, and dolphin continue strong into the Gulf and up the East Coast. East Coast and Gulf fishermen need to wake up and do the right thing for the fish and themselves. Circle hooks.