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Has anyone ever fished for kings with a mono or fluorocarbon leader with a circle hook? Being that the circle hook catches in the corner of the mouth, the teeth shouldn't be as much of an issue as long as the hook seats correctly. I'm just pondering as to whether it'd could land a fish when the bite gets tough or the fish are leader shy.
Past posts say 'no'. The king teeth cut mono leader before the slack is barely out of your line. Not my experience, but what you can find with the search function.
VERY difficult to target kings using mono leader, no matter what hook is used.
I have had them cut 100# mono leader like a knife thru hot butter!
Why would you want to even try might cost you the fish of a lifetime. You can go down on single strand or even 7 strand and a King or Big Spanish will hit your bait after all they are eating machines. I was getting a lot of strikes couple of weeks ago on a small X-Rap behind a bubble. Caught 3 keepers in 3 days not giants but fun on my Curado 300 with 20lb. Mamoi Hi catch and using 30lb.7 strand for leader.
Heavy mono with a circle hook is the standard for many other species like snapper, jacks, and tuna. It isn't unusual for a king to go after one of these baits. Sometimes you land it, but the majority of the time, you get cut off. The only time I'd say you can usually get away without steel is medium to fast trolling of large artificial baits like stretches or big spoons. Tight line on a moving target helps keep the leader away from the teeth but it isn't a guarantee.
I think you have your answer.....
Got it. Ive caught a couple kings on mono Spanish fishing. Just curious if anyone had ever given it a shot. Thanks fellas
Not a king fisherman (yet) but I can tell you that while circle hooks tend to hook the corner of the mouth, it doesn't mean the fish simply holds it there until it gets hooked. The hook can go quite deep, and with it the line. It just simply hangs up and rotates towards the corner of the mouth, usually. The line is getting rubbed against the teeth as it's pulled out. Lot of small species, the cuts don't go deep enough to break off but I've seen lots of salty kayak videos and his mono leaders usually don't hold up to get the kings in. Somewhat rare actually.
Have seen many kings hooked with mono especially on a Gotcha or someone fishing with mono leaders for leader shy Spanish when sun is bright. A few are hooked just right outside teeth or foul hooked and are caught. Most are not.
You will lose most kings on mono. Been there.
There was a guy fishing the pier last who swore by mono leaders for kings. He hooked up twice that I saw for a few seconds and got cut off. I offered him a leader and the hook-wire-swivel components to tie his own but he passed. I have not witnessed, but have heard of folks landing decent size kings on gotchas using 12lb mono. That's their luck, which is much better than mine.
There are places that fluorocarbon or mono is needed since the fish are leader shy, south Alabama isn't one of them. Why handicap yourself if it isn't necessary? Now experimenting with circle hooks with a metal leader, might be a worth a try. It may improve your hookup rate, where mono won't increase your strike rate, but your cut off rate would skyrocket.
This is why I have several pre-tied rigs ready to go in my box. I can tie on a swivel snap and snap on a mono rig if the water clarity is high.
A snap swivel kind of defeats the purpose of changing to a mono leader. Besides snaps generally suck.