Baitholder hooks

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

I tried some of these tonight and didn't get a single swallow, or gut hook. They were #6.
I was baiting the hook weedless with live worms and just gently moving the worm along. Caught what might be the smallest bass on the planet and a mess of scrappy gills.
No gut hooks. I don't know, maybe it means nothing.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

Thanks Leo.

Ive seen the sickles. Ill look into them.

[Leo Nguyen]

Suggestion David, give the sickle hooks a try. LedHed got me rolling between circle and the Matzuo sickle hooks/jigs now. That thing is like a hybrid of Owner's wide gap hook style and angled circle hook. It's perfect replacement of the aberdeen hooks, yet, as deadly as a circle hook. I got myself a fe hundred of different sizes to play with

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

A kind of Catch-22, right, Jason?
That could be it. I wasn't free lining beneath a float; I was Slider crawling them along.
I'll try a float next.

There are construction differences, however, with the bait holders. They are heavier, for one, and have a different geometry than the Aberdeen. They remind me
of circle hooks, seeming to share at least some attributes with those.

I also got hold of some #8 circle hooks recently, so I'll try them next.

[Jason Preslar]

I know a lot of folks don't think about it but a HUGE factor to think about when referring to gut hooking is the amount of time that you let the fish have the bait before setting the hook....and sometime you NEED to let the fish have it to ensure a productive hookset....but this enables the dreaded swallowed hook....

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

I've never seen baitholders smaller than #8, Leo.
I dig what you're saying about the kind of bite...that could have made the difference.

Chuck, I had no float on. I was using no weight, nothing but a bare hook.

[Leo Nguyen]

It's all depend on how aggressive the fish hammers the offering on the hook. The more aggressive hit-and-run tactics, the less gut hooking. The slow and deep swallowing, the chance of a gut hook is pretty high. I had a few gut hook from the larger fishes on #6, so I switched to #4 and larger. For #6, there will be rare instant of gut hooking on smaller fishes, unless you're using #10 and smaller.

[chuck pool]

Was you using a floater?