Drifting menhaden on top and bottom, having bad problem with circle hook points sticking into bait. I had switched from snelling to a loop knot, which could be the cause. But some say the loop improves the hook up ratio and let’s the circle do its job?
Was also using large hooks which may have contributed? In a former life fishing for stripers with herring and J-hooks, we used a small piece of rubber band to prevent the bait from sliding up the hook and sticking itself. I may try that with the circles.
Try going in the mouth and come back out the roof of the mouth just in front of the eyes. There’s no way for the barb to come back into the bait. Never tried with a manhadden, but works well with herring.
Instead of putting on a small piece of plastic worm/grub/rubberband before you hook the bait, try putting it on after you hook the bait. Place it just past the barb. This works much better for me.
There’s lots of ways around it, but I’d love to just be able to buy a circle hook with some sort of stopper built right into the the shank that would prevent the bait from being able to slide up the shank far enough to allow the point to stick back into the bait.
Saw on flats class the other day…CA was using ‘bait beads’, rubber bead, goes on hook before putting the bait, then synch the fish between bead and barb…basically like the rubber band concept as stated above.