Reel Repair by Alan Tani

We were stuck with small baits and had to go with smaller hooks, my Avet EX50SDS was set for 28# at strike but I never went to strike and I got lucky.   My largest YFT, 258#, was caught with a 6/0 Supper Mutu hook and a 2# scad mackerel bait.

I plan on using the Kaiju hooks to build assist hooks for slow pitch jigging and will never go higher than 25# of drag at full.

Thank you Kita for the test

Quote from: boon on July 28, 2026, 01:33:49 AMCurrently, a lot of the hooks I use when I want to be able to pull really hard on a fish are quite heavy gauge wire. The thicker the wire, the more force is required for it to penetrate, especially if it lands on a harder part of the fish's mouth, and therefore the more likely that it will not sink in to the bend and I will be point-loading the hook.
If I can use a thinner wire hook and get the same absolute strength from it, then I will likely benefit from better and more consistent hook-ups. The only concern I have with thinner hooks is that the cross-section pulling against the fish is smaller, and therefore (slightly?) more likely to tear a hole.

Agreed in principle.  Of course the question then arises - in practice, how much more difficult is it to sink the heavier hook, and does the thinner hook shank result in any disadvantages (as you noted)?  What would be a typical hook you would consider "quite heavy gauge wire", and what would be the approx gauge you would like to use in that size? 

In the context of marlin fishing, light wire hooks (eg. O'Shaughnessy) do offer better penetration on the same line class than hooks with heavier shanks (like say a Mustad 7691S) - I haven't measured the shank/wire sizes of both styles like Keta has with the hooks he tested, but the difference between them is certainly significant.  With narrow mouthed billfish like stripes that don't (in general) require a lot of drag to subdue, the advantage of hooking up more easily can override everything else and the adjustments needed (lighter drag and/or lighter tackle, playing the fish with more finesse etc) accepted to that end.  But that's probably an extreme example. Do the tuna guys here find it materially more difficult to set say a 2x strong live bait hook in 5/0 or 6/0 compared to a standard gauge? 

If plus size tuna are around I try to use 3x and up "C" hooks, mostly Owner Supper Mutu hooks.  For nighttime jigging I go big.

12/0 Owner Offshore



11/0 Owner SJ-51



If I am fishing chunk I like modified 16/0 Mustad  "C" hooks like the one on the right with red marker in the areas that I have re-formed.

16/0 Mustad 39965D

Quote from: Patudo on July 28, 2026, 11:41:32 AM

Quote from: boon on July 28, 2026, 01:33:49 AMEDIT: Big thanks to Keta for sacrificing some tackle to our collective knowledge. 95# is a lot of pull on a 3/0 hook!

Fully seconded.

Some thoughts:

- I would have thought that when bent out to the extent shown in @Keta's photos the fish would have been lost - however;

- under virtually all fishing situations you wouldn't be using remotely close to even 60 lbs of pressure on a hook that size, as you'd expect the hook hold to give way (as it would have been sunk into meat or in the best case scenario, around a piece of jaw rather than around a solid metal ring).  So those hooks really ought to be strong enough for virtually every application one could conceivably use them for. 

- when attempting to apply heavy drag to a small hook, thicker wire may actually be an advantage, as thinner wire might tend to cut its way out of the fish under intense pressure;

I think that we all agree that there is some  advantage with a thicker  gauge if you manage to get full penetration.  I would frame the question as whether you are better off with  a thinner gauge wire that will theoretically  improve the odds of getting full penetration vs the theoretical  advantage against tear our with a thicker gauge.

 If you ever keep marlin where you fish, I would suggest testing  with a dead one for hook penetration force, hooksetting effectiveness, and tear out at various spots in the mouth. Try with different gauge hooks of the same size and style.  The long ranger guys could do the same with some bigger yellowfin and bluefin.

   
I did this with baited and bare circle hooks on a dead yellowtail, and learned a bunch, but I wasn't interested in wire gauge at that time.  I did learn that on a yellowtail, tear out was never a problem with a circle hook if you get full penetration, and that if you didn't get full penetration (which mostly happens if you stick the point anywhere but around the jaw), the hook would usually rip out pretty easily.  It was rare to get a partial penetration that held much load on a circle hook, due to tear out.  Larger size was generally better when baited, but at the largest size (9/0), it started to increase the odds of sticking the point into the roof of the mouth or tongue area.  I also learned that a quick tug really increased the odds of a misplaced hookset.

 But this was all just using the heavier gauge Mustad (Demon Ultra Point?) circle hooks.

Quote- how does one catch a cow tuna (I take it this means over 200 lbs) on a 2/0 hook?  How much pressure would an experienced angler in that fishery be attempting to apply on that size hook - what sort of outfit (rod/reel/line) would typically be used, and what would their expectations be of landing fish that size?

Mostly you don't land one unless you get pretty lucky.  You are working on a pretty short clock, and a 2/0 hook is going to be fished with a lighter leader and a lighter outfit, probably targeting school tuna.  There is no point in fishing a 2/0 hook with a 200 lb leader, and no point in using a big outfit with a lighter leader.  So you will be undergunned.  I would also be curious  to hear the ratio between  success and zing-pow.

Leader abrasion is actually the main issue. 

I would be surprised if  a 2/0 circle hook would fit around the jawbone of a 200+ lb tuna.  And if you get anything but a jaw hookup with a circle hook, the odds of that hook staying is kinda low.  I fish no smaller than 4/0 circle hook on my fly patterns for school tuna.  I start missing hookups on 3/0 and below.

-J

Again, I was lucky to land the fish, the hook was in the skin at the corner of the fish's mouth.  I was using a 100# topshot as there were only plus size fish around.  We made bait that evening and had good size mackerel the next few days.

Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on July 28, 2026, 11:27:52 AMA little bit thinner, a little bit stronger.

That's some F'n marketing right there. You don't need to evoke imagery from quantum mechanics with your description! just say it's thinner and stronger.

"A bit more strength in a smaller package" is ADEQUATE MARKETING. People who want more will buy that. High end hooks aren't for the cost conscious. You don't need to try to science-jargon it up to make it seem necessary. It's not. It's just thinner and stronger, which is cool.

I'm yelling at the manufacturers, not you guys.

This hook is probably a response to the high priced, pretty looking, "ultra premium" hooks coming from Japanese brands.  Mustad wants a piece of that market.

It would be an interesting marketing strategy, and if anybody was able to pull this off, it would be Mustad.  "No-nonsense, just better" and shoot for a slightly lower (but not too much lower)  price point than the competition.

But I am skeptical that it would get noticed.  And it would take some huevos for a marketing guy to propose this when the other marketing guy in the next cube has a flashy proposal  spewing superlatives left and right.

- J

"the money we saved on coming up with marketing technobabble with supporting BS graphics went to the engineering department, and they used that to make a better product."

I wrote that myself and my wallet is already half way out.

Or "the money we saved not making stupid flashy packaging that you'll throw away means these hooks cost you, the fisherman, less."

Hey. A fella can dream right?

I also like these for building assist hooks, mostly 2/0 to 4/0, and their packaging is not overly fancy.  They are good hooks too.

Quote from: Keta on July 28, 2026, 07:47:03 PMI also like these for building assist hooks, mostly 2/0 to 4/0, and their packaging is not overly fancy.  They are good hooks too.

I think that the BKK Deep only comes in large sizes. Do you mean the Reefmaster?

I like the idea of a smaller welded eye.  I just can't make myself pull the trigger to pay what they want for these premium Japanese hooks.  Right now, I am sticking with the VMC 7264.  I can get a decent deal on 25 packs, but they are a bit heavy for my purposes.  Assist hooks are supposed to get sucked in with the vacuum (that is kind of the point of assist hook rigging), so a lighter hook should arguably help.  But for tuna, which use a lot of ram feeding, it is probably less of an issue. It is almost hard not to stick a tuna that eats a jig.

-J

Could be, my "old timers disease" and CRS sucks.

Quote from: jurelometer on July 28, 2026, 09:09:48 PMI think that the BKK Deep only comes in large sizes. Do you mean the Reefmaster?

It will be the 8070-3X. Basically the same hook but scaled down. I really like both of these for jig hooks, 8090s for knife jigs and 8070s for slow pitch. They're a chinese hook and the "materials from japan assembled in china" annoys me conceptually but they're priced much less than a "premium" hook here and similar quality.
I'm a big fan of the Monster Circle (UA2012021) as well.