Rigging your livebaits on a kayak. Any preferred methods?

[kingiFiddler]

A couple more observations:

Pete's up through the roof of the mouth method resulted in two hook-ups yesterday. Used it on the small ones I didn't want to back hook because was towing them around rather than drifting and nose-hooking the small ones seldom seems to work out well.

I've now settled on Andrew's sorry, Casultyward's, demon circle hook suggestion (work well, cheap), 8/0. Model number is 39951. The beaks are small enough to thread better through the nostrils too, when nose hooking the livie. They seem slightly smaller than other 8/0 circles too, so fit in what seems like a sweet spot of about a 7.5/0


So, small livies (and possibly very big ones with bigger hooks, but haven't trialled that much yet), it's up through the roof. For average sized livies it goes through the nose. Still deciding between roof or the nitta cable ties for the big livies.

But nice to be narrowing things down a bit.
Pic of yesterday's test results:

[Casualtyward]

Thanks, KF.

I'm slightly jealous that you get so many takes you can afford to experiment. I'm lucky if I get one good shot (barring the time I had at least 6 takes and not a single hook-up).

I don't think the demon circles come any bigger than an 8/0 - I looked for them when I couldn't get consistent hook ups.

[kingiFiddler]

Thanks Casualtyward. When this place was closing, many of us were lamenting the superb knowledge-base that was about to be lost.

Whilst I'm not exactly reinventing the wheel, I hope to do my part in collating and testing different ideas so someone, somewhere finds it of benefit. I figure in a year or two I might have the knowledge/experience to actually offer up some good info for others, but for now collating it is the best I can do.

Experimenting is part of the buzz I get from fishing. I can't stomach seafood and we don't eat much, so plenty get released and what I photograph are only the ones that made it to the ute. There's a list of people I give most of the keepers to. Please note however that experimenting also has, almost by design, its fair share of doughnut days. I recently did four sessions in a row with nothing worth keeping. But learnt plenty though, which is a buzz.

We have also been very lucky up here. That first week in January was the best I have ever seen it in the 15 or so years here. One for the record books for sure.

Thanks for that info on the demon hooks. I too couldn't find any bigger demon circle hooks and would welcome info on good but cheap bigger options. The only big ones I can find whilst good are absurdly expensive.

[kingiFiddler]

Small livie hooked with Pete's method up through roof of mouth and slow trolled under a sinker accounted for this yesterday: