It was only a matter of time. Snag and drop fishing for striped bass, which has been illegal now for over a year, still happens on SOME boats and on SOME beaches. I have seen it with my own eyes so I am not talking out of school. The usual move of casting out a 10/0 weighted treble hook into a bunker
pod and snagging a bunker and letting it drop down below the swimming pod has come to an end. It can be an almost guarantee to catch big striped bass. Imagine a large acre pod of menhaden with a school of lurking large striped bass below them ready to pick out the sick, lame, and lazy. Well when your bunker, now maimed and weighted down, falls below the school..... it's game on.
The ASMFC's Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board took action to have states adopt the circle hook only fishing when using bait for striped bass, live or dead. The way it is supposed to work is any bait used must be on a inline circle hook. So if you are using live eels or bunker then they must be on
that hook. If you are going to swim live menhaden to bait, that you snagged with a weighted treble hook, then it must be reeled in, transferred to the circle hook rod, and placed back out where it might hopefully swim back out and under the bunker pod it came out of. You can see the idea below.
Today I saw on Facebook the wizards at work. Pushing the boundaries of good idea and legality to prove a point. If snag and drop fishing with a weighted treble hook isn't allowed, well hell, how about snag and drop fishing with a weighted double circle hook rig. These have been designed and are being sold by tackle shop (s) and will surely be a hot topic of all of the striped bass social media sites.
It defeats the purpose of the transfer of a live bait to a circle hook. Where one hook is supposed to hook the fish in the corner of the mouth which would allow for a quicker release and reduce mortality, this may actually add to a harder and longer release which could add to striped bass mortality.
Now, I'm not even sure how well this rig will work. I would hate to comment on why it might not or how it can be improved. It could just be a ploy to see what kind of reaction they would get out of the tree-hugger fishing community. It could also just be a message to the ASMFC saying F' you, we are following the rules that YOU have made into law.
They never said it had to be a single inline circle hook.