Hook sizes

[Psion]

I had my first catfish fishing session last week I had a 24lb Cat and a 18lb Carp.
I was fishing next to a angler who was catching Carp every hour or more he also caught six catfish the thing was he was only useing a size 12 hooks.
I have come down a lot on my hook sizes but the smallest I use is size 4,s. I could believe it.

[Neville Fickling]

Lets not go down the silly small size hook route for cats. With the amount of force it requires to get them landed quickly a 12 isn’t going to cope

[Happy Hayes]

I fish a water where most cats seem to be caught by the carp boys.
Small hooks ,small baits etc they are also the ones who play the cats for far to long or their line snaps leaving terminal tackle attached to the cat .
I’ll stick with big hooks big baits
Regards
Tom

[Psion]

I would never go down to a hook that small I just found it surprising.

[Neville Fickling]

I would never go down to a hook that small I just found it surprising.

There’s all sorts of daft things in angling. Clubs and fishery owners making rules to protect the fish which can have the opposite effect

[dimitri239]

Caught 3 catfish between me and my mate on Friday, smallest hooks I use is a very strong size 4 and in one of the fish we caught we had to remove two other hooks which must have been a size 8 max.
The fact that it's a catfish only lake means they were probably lying targeting them with well undergunned gear.
Catfish aren't shy, I used 0.45 mainline along with rig tube and big hooks.
Play them hard and get them in.

[Psion]

I use 3/0 for big baits where I know there are big Cats over 50 pounds and size 4 to size 1 for most of my Catfish fishing.
Next's trip 17th June two nights.

[Mark Phillips]

Small hooks for cats is a bad idea. I recall getting a cat just over 50lb whilst carp fishing and I was using a size 8 hook with a 12mm boilie. When I went unhook the fish, there wasn't much left of the hook - just a mangled bit of metal twisted into a knot that had now wedged itself into the cat's mouth. It was a miracle I even landed the fish. I don't use anything less than a size 2 when catfishing, even if using smaller baits like worms, leeches, pellets or boilies. Most of the time I am using 2/0's and 3/0's with the bigger baits I prefer to use. I think the 'problem' with cats is many who fish for them do with a carp fishing mentality, whereas others do it with a predator fishing mentality; the latter is from my experience the way to get results.

[Muskie]

My hook of choice for cats in UK on a livebait was a 2/0 Tiemco SP hook. Never bait fished for them, but a decent sized hook is needed to cope with their power and to fight them properly as correctly stated in posts above. A decent trace material i also required. I mainly used 40lbs big game mono.

[Psion]

My catfish trip when well, we had nine cats all together I caught a PB at 37lb.

[Happy Hayes]

My catfish trip when well, we had nine cats all together I caught a PB at 37lb.

Congratulations on the new pb
Regards
Tom

[Psion]

Thank you Tom. It was real fight I had to get my mate out of bed to help me land it.

[Mike J]

I had my first catfish fishing session last week I had a 24lb Cat and a 18lb Carp.
I was fishing next to a angler who was catching Carp every hour or more he also caught six catfish the thing was he was only useing a size 12 hooks.
I have come down a lot on my hook sizes but the smallest I use is size 4,s. I could believe it.

If a catfish wants your bait I would doubt the hook size would make any difference to it having it.

In France there is a long running programme of concerning fishing and shooting (big sports to them) One episode centred on a commercial fishermen catching catfish from the Seine river, his hooks were very similar to the Mustad longline hooks eg; 3-4mm wire, 20-25mm gape, galvanised circles attached to something like para cord. The fish he was catching were in the 10-20kg range, about one fish every four hooks.

.