How To: Tie The Power Snell

hi I'm Toby Lipinski for the fishermen magazine today I'm going to be showing you how to tie what's known as the power Snell this is used generally with circle hooks it was developed by the offshore tuna fishermen when they wanted to use very large circle hooks but they had to drop down to extremely light leaders and what they were running into was a problem of that little gap when the eye of the hook comes around no matter how tight that is crushed together there's still a little bit of a gap and it produces a rough edge so what they found was that the leader front when it was smelled would eventually slide down in potentially cut off after a lengthy battle so what they came up was with the power snow which incorporates a pair of wraps through the eye of the hook one acting as a cushion therefore the weight bearing or load bearing line coming into your eye never runs into that little gap therefore increasing your opportunity or your chances of landing fish well I've discovered this knot and started using it circle hooks when I was fishing for striped bass with chunks of menhaden as well as for live eels in case you're not aware yet already enacted for 2020 in Massachusetts waters for private anglers shore and private boat is requirement to use in line non offset circle hooks when you're using bait it does not apply to commercial anglers are for hires at this time and then the remaining Atlantic states actually have this going out for public comment of this fall as part of the public hearings which are going to affect the 2020 going and going forward striped bass regulations so there already is the requirement of Massachusetts next year and a good chance that other states will enact similar requirements for using live bait for striped bass and if nothing else it's simply a better choice for the fish to use a circle hook and honestly since I started using circle hooks I can say with complete certainty that I have a better hook up ratio than with J hooks I have far fewer deep hooked fish and I land more fish that I hook as you'll see when I show you how to tie this knot as there's multiple benefits in the end so again you got to start off with that circle hook in line non offset let's jump into the how-to and see just how it's done okay so here's how we tie the power Snell in this case I'm gonna be using a six spot Gamakatsu inline Octopus circle se 4x strong this is the hook that I've been using this year for live eels in preparation or anticipation they're of the circle hook requirements for bait and striped bass it's already been implemented for 2020 in Massachusetts and it's going on to public hearings this fall for the rest of the Coast so there's a good chance that everyone's going to be required so you know what make sense right now to a learn how to tie the right knots to use with the circle hooks and B to acquaint yourself with how circle hooks are used for a live bass so here we go we're going to tie up a quick little knot in this case we're using yellow fly line backing just because it shows up a little better on the video obviously in the real world scenario I'd be using either monofilament or fluorocarbon leader material sorry you start off we've got inline circle we've got a straight line on offset I start by taking your lot your leader material running it up through the eye you're going to then circle back around and come through the eye a second time now what you want to do here when it comes through is make sure that the tag end lays on the side of the hook where the gap is in the eye so in this case it's on that side so I've got my tag and running on that side as well which I'll show you why at the end of the video so then we take our loop and we're going to run it anywhere from five to seven times around the eye of the or the shank of the hook make sure we also include the tag line five to seven depending on the head of the house heavier line is just to three each of those wraps goes towards the backside of the hook or six and we'll do seven on this one what I then like to do is reposition that tag on the top of the hook pull the mainline through once you get that loop form I bring in a set of pliers grab that on one end pull it all tight and it locks in now what this has done is you've got your line coming up you've got that tagging forming a cushion or a barrier of sorts between the gap in that I know matter how tight these hooks are unless they're soldered there remains a gap and a bit of a sharp edge so as a fish is is on there and fighting especially with lighter lines and larger heavier circle hooks you have a larger gap and a sharper edge do you run the risk of wearing through the leader and eventually cutting off so by doing this this tagging produces a cushion the second aspect of this knot which provides such a benefit with these circle hooks and just clip off the tag here is that when the hook is coming through the eye you produce a bit of pull torque whatever it is on this side so it pulls the hook down as you pull that hook as the line goes that way and naturally with the line coming through the I like that wants to pull the hook in rotate it in this manner what that does is a on the initial hook set much easier to get hooked into the fish's mouth and second when you're fighting a fish it's always pulling the hook by down which then comes around and pushes that point in at this direction so you will lose far fewer fish then other style circle hooks with a bent eye and way fewer fish than you would with a standard J hook and the benefit obviously is that 99.9 percent of the time the fish is going to be hooked in the corner of the mouth so it's much better for the fish with the current issues that we have going on it was released immortality that is always something that should be taken into consideration so again this is how you tie up the power smut Snell and again 20/20 Massachusetts has already implemented and did mandatory circle hooks when using bait for striped bass and there's a good chance that other atlantic coast states will also initiate similar regulations in 2020 you

Channel: The Fisherman Magazine

Views: 150,753

Rating: 4.6280398 out of 5

Keywords: The, Fisherman, Magazine

Id: zPnV50yyT3U

Length: 6min 49sec (409 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 03 2019