Hook sizes and scratching.....

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#1 Post by **petekd** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:57 pm

Following on from some discussion here... http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/bull ... php?t=8414

I have recently got into scratching with long light fluoro snoods, little bits of worm pushed up the shank of fine wire size 4s and tipped off with a sliver of mackerel to very good effect. Fishing in the suds in the daytime its very effective at winkling out fish, albeit smaller than the norm but it does produce fish when all else is failing.

Whats everyone else doing? Now I know this may provoke some debate in relation to targetting small fish. My own thoughts are this, from my small amount of experience employing these tactics, I have actually found by using a super sharp really fine wired hook (Owner Pint hooks) to a small bait, I am hooking the majority of fish in the mouth as they have snatched at the bait. The few I have hooked deeper it has been no problem to retrieve the hook as being smaller, they haven't gone in as far and being a very fine wire, they are easily bent to aid retrieval. Compare that to a thicker wire larger hook that has taken a fairly hefty strike to set and has very little bend and give. For example, try removing a 2/0 aberdeen from a gut hooked Coalie/codling without performing major surgery.

Thoughts welcome.....

#2 Post by **Pat Spillane** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:07 am

Personally I would rather not fish for small stuff, OK if they grab a bait intended for bigger fish I will do my best to return them. I seldom go smaller than 2/0, so they dont get gut hooked too often. Its not that I am against trying to catch small stuff as I have fished for and caught both Gudeon and Stickleback while coarse fishing. The challenge there was to catch the target species at its adult size. Just my opinion

#3 Post by **petekd** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:38 am

The majority of scratching around is done in competition fishing and can so often be the difference between having a card to hand in or not. Hit a beach in the day time, stick on 2/0s and the chances are you will catch sod all. Start scratching around in the suds with smaller baits and you can be very surprised with what you pull in.

#4 Post by **frodo baggins** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:14 am

I'd be inclined to agree with you Pete, while I don't fish matches, when there is absolutely sod all doing, it's nice to see the rod tip bounce around some little bit. Basically you're incorporating coarse fishing tactics, and as a result causing very little harm to the fish so I can't see the problem. I know we're meant to be all for fish conservation and everything but i can't see the real harm in catching and releasing a few pin whiting and the sort on scaled down terminal tackle when there is nothing else doing. we can't always be catching big fish, especially at this time of year.

Just my opinion on the subject, it doesn't make me right.

Patrick

#5 Post by **Donagh** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:43 am

Theres no point having the big hooks conservation debate again we all have our views. Would be nice to discuss scratching without it becoming a big debate on its merits.

In the estuary I like using booms with 15lb line and either a small section of sand eel for whiting or a thin sliver of mackerel for flounder when fishing the creek in Shannon. Size 2 B940s (short shanks) are excellent for this. I haven't been out with this damn weather. Hopefully next weekend but I won't get into scratching mode until january as big fish always hold more interest for me.

Donagh

#6 Post by **frodo baggins** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:57 am

oops sorry I wasn't starting a debate there, i was agreeing with Pete about scratching. By marrying sea and coarse tackle and techniques, there are some very interesting methods that could be developed and effectively used in the right conditions.

#7 Post by **petekd** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:11 pm

Would be nice to discuss scratching without it becoming a big debate on its merits.

Then that is what we shall do...... :D

Not interested in any negativity about tackling smaller fish, I am approaching this from a competition point of view whereby it is standard practise. I am as conservation minded as anyone as anybody who has fished with me can surely testify, in my small amount of experience at this type of fishing, I am finding it much easier to unhook a small fish from a deep size 4 than a deep 2/0. The whole big hooks=big fish equation does not hold true, I have had countless little codling and coalies on huge bass and cod baits.

Rant over.

Back to scratching and hook sizes.....

For scratching about close in, I am using a ten foot long approx rig body of 40lb Fluoro carbon. Its a 2 up one down style with snoods of between 3 and four feet long of 10lb fluorocarbon to size 4 Owner Pint hooks. I dont use too much bling, just 3 or 4 small shiny beads at the end of each snood and a tiny dust shot to hold them in place. (I wouldnt like tying stop knots or using little crimps on 10lb fluoro) I bait these preedominantly with an inch of black lug and an inch or so fine strip of mackerel that has been sliced very thinly. I find the extra stiffness of the fluoro and in particular a decent breeze (of which there is no shortage of down here...) helps to avoid the rig tangling. I toss that out between 15 and 30 yards and fish the suds. I have landed cod to 46cm on this rig, a size 4 dwarfed in its gob.

#8 Post by **frodo baggins** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:28 pm

something i find usefull when scratching, particularly on piers etc. rather than use a ready tied rig from home, use the shockleader as the rig body, and instead of crimps to hold the 3 snoods in place, i use power gum to make adjustable stoppers. the snoods can be varying lengths depending on preference and floating beads can also be used to keep the bait up in the water. the result is an adjustable rig that can have the snoods moved far up the shock leader and in effect search the water column for feeding fish rather than staying pinned to the sea bed. it can be a bit tricky to cast when the rig is 12 feet long but it does work.

Patrick

#9 Post by **Donagh** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:43 pm

I wasn't complaining about the debate. Its just I'd hate to see it get in the way of a subject I know very little about and find interesting. The debate could always be held in another topic.

I do the same Patrick on piers. I've said this before but for whiting I use the avon booms on long mainline trapped with silicon tubing with mainline passed through twice. For whiting I keep the snoods short and vary where the boom is on the mainline. Often the snood well off the floor will get the fish.

Donagh

#10 Post by MC » Tue Dec 12, 2006 1:24 pm

was about to ask a similar question, but was also going to ask if circle hooks could be used as in theory they avoid deep hooked fish.

Liamo · #11 Post by **Liamo** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 1:59 pm

Hi,

Great time to start this detate as I'm experimenting with this stuff meself at the moment... Trying to get my head around long snoods vs short snoods. Light fluoro vs regular amnesia etc. etc blah blah blah just an endless amount of variations. It's headwrecking trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. So here was the first test...

Headed back to Brandon Bay on Sat into a beautiful surf; proper swell driven stuff with big long clean tables of water.

Fished a 9ft long 2 up 1 down with 200mm gemini booms and 2ft 12lb fluoro snoods to size 4 B940s's and I also fished a standard 6ft 2 up 1 down with 25lb clear 2ft amnesia snoods to sz 2 Mustad 3261BLN's which would be more like my normal rig. On each rig the middle hook carried floating beads of appropriate sizes.

I alternated rigs each cast on the same rod and baits were lug tipped with maddies all day. The bog standard rig with the bigger hooks produced 2 bass and my scratching rig produced nowt!

1. Have heard the argument that for small fish aberdeen patterns might not be that suitable as the fish could find it difficult to swallow the longer shank so shorter shank hooks in general might produce more hookups -a point worth considering yes/no?

2. Those light snoods are bluddy fiddly, the flouro snoods seem to tangle quite easily even with the use of booms to help them stand off, I can't understand how people get away with 3 or 4 or 5ft super light snoods am I missing something here!?

3. Even though the booms on the scratching rig should have helped nail the rig to the seabed in a reasonably big surf it was the middle snood with the floating beads on the other rig that produced both fish indicating they were attracted to a small bait that had lots of movement and was being tossed all over the place.

Liam

#12 Post by **corbyeire** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 2:02 pm

point number 3 is very interesting

#13 Post by **lumpy** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:36 pm

i began scratching last march april when the bass season quitened down and the ray hadnt arrived in large enough numbers to warrent fishing for them. i fished with a 12 ft carp rod and a an abu 5000 loaded with 8 lb braid and a 20 lb shock leader. i generally fished no more than 50 yds out with a flattened 2 oz bomb and a 6 ft 1 up 1 down tied with 20 lb flourocarbon body and 8lb flouro carbon hook length and size 2 circles (i dont comp fish). baits were small blow lug, maddies, strips of squid and mack. while not catching large numbers of fish or size for that matter, i did manage to increase my catches when compared to the heavy rod (mainly pin whiting and coalies) the best results with 2 inch blow lug tipped with a few squid tenticles.interestingly baiting these small circles with lug didnt proove to difficult

#14 Post by **m.b3** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:40 am

Liamo wrote:
2. Those light snoods are bluddy fiddly, the flouro snoods seem to tangle quite easily even with the use of booms to help them stand off, I can't understand how people get away with 3 or 4 or 5ft super light snoods am I missing something here!?

Liam

Liam, don't use the booms! the rig is less tangle prone without. have used em up to 6 feet long withough problems. booms=short snoods, preferably shorter than boom. only very rarely would a rig with booms be used with a long snood, usually to prevent line damage on bottom snood from the lead in heavy surf. i know have said contrary to above on a post a long time ago but i can't find it to say otherwise!

Liamo · #15 Post by **Liamo** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 3:29 pm

Thanks for that Mark, incidentally it was the bottom boom/snood which caused the most problems as it kept getting wrapped around the lead and damaging the line.

So what are the practical uses for booms for shore angling then? Is it simply to help nail baits to the seabed on short snoods...?

Liam

#16 Post by **Pat Spillane** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 7:32 pm

OK now that the simmering is over, I have'nt fished in competition since 1980 and I'm only back pleasure angling for the last couple of years so a quiestion to help understand scratching. Is there a size restriction in competitions

#17 Post by **petekd** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:39 pm

There are size limits in competitions, Currently in SAI I think its 20cm. Depending on the area a particular club fishes, the size limits can vary by a fair way though. I dont recall having seen size limits of under 20cm anywhere but thats not to say they dont exist.

#18 Post by Al » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:27 pm

Pat Spillane wrote:OK now that the simmering is over, I have'nt fished in competition since 1980 and I'm only back pleasure angling for the last couple of years so a quiestion to help understand scratching. Is there a size restriction in competitions

Is you asking about a restriction on size of hooks or fish?

#19 Post by **stevecrow74** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:51 pm

hook restricted to no smaller than size 4 in all competitions as far as i know..

#20 Post by Al » Wed Dec 13, 2006 10:00 pm

Just read my report there, i meant 'are you' not 'is you' I know thats prob obvious but didn't wanna sound like an Ali-G impersonator :D