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ACS hooks


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Today I "field tested" some hooks from ACS that wayne had graciously sent me to try. I fished three rods two with the ACS hooks and one with another brand All three were brand new and fresh out of the package. The ACS hooks were size four and six and the other was a size six.

All three were tied with sufix magician braided hook link in 25lb test

Of the six fish hooked up i landed four of them with hook pulls on two. The four landed were all on the ACS hooks two each on each of the sizes. The two lost were on the other brand. Not a perfect scientific test but i thought i would give you the results. The ACS hooks are very sharp out of the pack and are quite stout in demeanor. Raymie mentioned the fact he thought they might cause a bit more damage to the fish mouths as they were very securely hooked, took a little more effort to get the hooks out, but i believe a well hooked fish gets to the net and with the exception of a barbless hook there will be a certain amount of hook damage. The other point here is you have very strong river fish that just by the nature of their strength and length of run they will incur a bit more mouth damage. The barbs of these hooks are small enough that it is not required to bend the barb down. The river fish i caught yesterday had the biggest mouths you can imagine for fish of their weights . they were huge and i believe because of that they were hooked a little bit further back in the lip as their suck and blow with those mouths can only rival that of an industrial hoover.

Thanks for sending me the samples Wayne, they worked the charm :D

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I will agree that the hooks acs is getting seem superb....

i only have one example, but here it is.

you may remember philly guys went to town lake a month ago. well zach gave me a rig he tied on a long shank pop up hook i believe he got from acs. maybe it was the hook and his was his craftsmanship, maybe it was luck, but i finally retired this rig, YESTERDAY. i must have landed 50 fish on that one hook- including a 29 and a 32.5 and others at town. as well as a 20 and plenty of 15s here in philly. i have re sharpened the hook a few times, and the only reason i stopped using the rig is because the power pro is starting to fray at the knot. i'll tie it up onto a new hair and i will go back to using my lucky hook. the funniest thing is, i have lost plenty of other rigs lately to rocks and othe snags.... i just get lucky every time with this one. fish have been getting spawny again lately here judging by how excited they get when i have them on the mat.... anyway, they have been so fiesty that matt and i both have bent many many hooks. not that one...

who would've thought.... a lucky hook. maybe i can get it plated.

so anyway... zach- what brand of hook was that?

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I used the long shank hooks I received in the membership package for rigging double boilies, they worked excellent. No hook pulls or missed runs. Unfortunately they are not immune to zebra mussels...

-Mike/CT

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Wow! thanks Fellas,

We really did put a lot of effort into finding, testing and securing these hooks, of course nothing is ever going to be to everybody's taste but here you definitely have a couple of patterns (K-9 and K-9 Long shank) that do what they're supposed to do.

We've called these hooks the K-9 range, if your rig temps a Carp into making a mistake with one of these tied onto the business end, they lock down and rarely let go... :D

Apologies for the sales pitch here but we're extremely happy with our K-9's... :D

Cheers,

Wayne

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Guest big Raymie

as mark pointed out, i was net boy and unhooked all the fish, i noticed the heavier ACS hooks did a lot more damage to the mouth that lighter hooks, it wasnt so much the unhookingbut the hooks seemed to rip into the mouth more, no idea if it was the hooks themselves or just the fish or what, but it bears looking at.

:D

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Raymie i thought about it on the ride home yesterday and i am convinced that its not the hook so much as it is the fish strength and their runs and the size of their mouths and where they were hooked. If you remember Matts fish had the obvious signs of being hooked before and it wasnt pretty. Yes i am sure less trauma can be caused to any fish by using smaller lighter hooks however i am sure that a hook pull (think ripping flesh)would and does cause more damage than a well hooked fish and that the "wound" (small hole compared to possibly damaged for life flesh )caused by a well hooked fish will heal faster than a tearing of the flesh.

Hey , thanks for being a sport and helping out with the net yesterday it was a fun day and i enjoyed sharing the bank with you and matt (the other commie)

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Mark & Raymie - generally long shanked hooks will do more damage to the mouth, especially on hard fighting fish like river carp.

It is a personal decision as to the risk of mouth damage you are prepared to cause.

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Guest big Raymie

mate myself and sean have fished those carp a lot as have others, and i gotta say i hadnt seen the damage before, not getting at you oh mighty papa smurf but as you noted i commentated on it right away, the fish with the mouth damage looked like it was done by a treble.

:D

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I fish with the long shank pretty much exclusivly now and havent noticed any thing like that, I do use a peice of rig tubbing on my knotless knot also fish with a softdrag, Im not river carping though

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i do think though its the strength of those fish more so than the hook .i know your not getting at me , as i wouldnt allow that :D

I liked the fish holding aspects of the hooks and im gonna get more just for that reason alone :D I used small hooks at ATC and lost two very good fish due to that, one hook pull and one straightened completely out. Those fish in a tourney situation could have meant the difference between fourth place and in our case fourth place lol :D As you know i usually fish with 8s and 10's as thats what was originally told to me by the guy who first introduced me to this method of fishing (christian) he told me to always use the smallest hooks i could. I have been using the fox series 2 #10 size almost the size of a kernal of corn . Last weekend in Raystown i switched to size 6 penetrators (slightly offset) and didnt lose a fish after the switch. since as you knwo i do most of my fishing at the basin calm waters no structure to speak of the number 10's do just fine with the odd fish lost . But for the river fish swimming in the river ( basin fish are really river fish but no current to deal with ) im gonna go with a stouter hook such as the ACS for a surer grip. I know its gonna mean more fish to the net and less fish lost to hook pulls and the like. Smurf out.......

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Guest big Raymie

now heres the rub, when does catching a carp become more important than the safety of said fish. should we now forget about all safety gear as mayby it might mean we lose the odd fish. think about it guys.

:D

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Raymie itsnot as if the fish didnt swim away to have another day of fighting the current and eating the odd crayfish or two. The hooks in question are stout full bodied hooks that provide a good hookset. as far as im concerned if im going to go fishing for any type of fish , it is going to involve there being a sharp piece of metal impaled in its mouth with a line attached to it.

Besides this is the fricken potomac river not one of those closed off english paylakes were there is a finite number of fish to worry about . the fish i caught will live a long happy life they have more to worry about from the boat propellers than the little boo boo they got from my hook.

o n that same note of fish saftey what about one of those two fish you caught yesterday one of them i believe became potential live bass / catfish bait are you now only specie specific in your care of fish ??? :D rub that :D

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Karl i know no pop intended :D Common Carp who spawn 100's of thousands of eggs are in my opinion not in the same class for comparison to buffalo and wolves in regards to extinction probability /possibility. That is not to say i cant appreciate the desire to have them around for a long time. The comparison i was attempting to make was that in a closed environment (english venue) with a certain number of usually purchased fish there is a greater desire and need to keep the fish healthy and as injury free as possible.

Angling techniques and practices were developed for those venues that until recently were unknown and foreign to the average angler here in the US, myself included and Ive been catching carp for over 30 years.

I dont believe for a second that the slightly stouter hook shank on the wonderful ACS hooks Wayne sent will have a measureable negative(even with a micrometer) :D impact on carp in the USA.

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Guest phonebush

Raymie,

I have been using 1/0 treble hooks for the very strong Missouri River carp. It seems to help when you pin their mouths closed. Hardly any hook damage occures.

Carp are not wolves and buffalo. Carp are increasing in population by about ?% (but some I'm sure) per year. Maybe faster than any freshwater fish in the wild in North America (maybe in a good year green sunfish will give them a run, but green sunfish cycle).

We are talking fish. Maybe in the UK it is important but frankly here in the US C&R is just a matter of common sense and a mark of respect. Twice caught carp are becoming more common where CAG anglers are. What % of American carp are we talking about? To some degree this has always been a subject that chaps me a little.

I say and have always said angler training is far more important than hook selection. I've noticed even our most experienced anglers often "hurry" the hook out to ensure more photo time.

Phone

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Caro- wolves buffalo??? well chap my hide rangler I guess Ill hire some pro carp hunters and feed carp meat to the chinese to build a bridge to the UK

I think you have little to worry about the end of carp as we know it-Carp and roaches will prolly rule the world one day!!!

where I fish they say we have 125# of carp per acre size...27,000 acres thats 3.375 million pounds of carp give a million pounds ether way

as few as carp are recaught here I do not think hook damage/ mortality is a issue in the states

mocarp

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