The advantage of using circle hooks when live baiting for barramundi, threadys or fingemark over your traditional J hook or suicide hook, is more often than not the fish is hooked in the corner of the mouth.
If your intention is to release the fish, circle hooks or half circle hooks like the Kahle pattern are the best way to go when live baiting.
The trick to hooking fish in the corner of the mouth, especially barra, is to fish the rod in gear and let the fish inhale the bait. Don’t strike at the fish like you see on TV.
Another tip is go up 1-2 hook sizes to what you usually use in a J hook or suicide hook, when live baiting with circle hooks.
We cover the best live bait for barramundi in this related post.
For all my live baiting I use the Kahle Pattern in our Jaw Jerker hooks. They became a bit hard to get a hold of and I love them so much I decided to import my own. We supply them in the 6/0 and 7/0 sizes which are the most popular for barramundi fishing.
Related: An introductory guide to barramundi fishing.
Now for a quick rigging live bait tip: If you hook it through the back it will spin in the current.
For tips on how to best rig your live bait, check out the following video : Rigging Live Mullet
For a comprehensive course on all things live bait, check out our course Locating Livies.
And don’t forget our free how to catch a barra training including Ryan’s fishing strategy, lure retrieval methods, favourite lures and information from our Barra Basics graduates.
Click the underlined link to register for the free three video training series.
You might also like our post: 7 Best Barramundi Lures & Where to Use Them.
For more great tips, check out some of our previous posts below.
more free tips
