Rudershausen et al A comparison between circle hook and J hook performance in the troll fisheries off North Carolina 
167 
Recreational 
Charter 
Hook type 
Figure 5 
Plots of the average number of strikes per trip (±standard error) on circle hooks (open 
bars) and J hooks (gray bars). Data for plots include strikes from unidentified fish 
later apportioned to species that could be identified. Data for each group are from both 
directed and nondirected trips for that species. Plots are broken down by user group 
(recreational [left column, panels A-C] and charter [right column, panels D-F]) and 
taxa (dolphinfish [ Coryphaena hippurus] [A, D[, tunas [B, E], and mackerels [C, F] ) . 
The tuna group included yellowfin tuna ( Thunnus albacares), blackfin tuna (Thunnus 
atlanticus), skipjack tuna (Euthynnus pelamis), and false albacore (Euthynnus allet- 
teratus). The mackerel group included wahoo ( Acanthocybium solandri), king mackerel 
( Scomberomorus caualla), and Spanish mackerel (Scomberomorus maculatus ). The legend 
denoting fill pattern for each leader type applies to ail panels. No bar for a particular 
hook-type + taxon+user-group + leader-type combination indicates no catch. 
are designed to hook fish if the hook rounds a corner 
within the jaw area. In theory, this would be most com- 
mon for fish that turn their mouth opening away from 
the direction of the fishing line. However, if a fish is 
not seen during a strike, if is difficult to know when 
to reel the line tight (i.e., when the fish has turned). 
Our workshop panel (see Methods section) argued for a 
drop back for dolphinfish because this species is known 
to swim with the bait in their mouth in the direction 
that the line is trolled. The drop back for dolphinfish 
was done to allow enough time for the dolphinfish to 
turn. Even with these efforts, hook-up rates of dolphin- 
fish were lower with circle hooks than J hooks for both 
user groups. Prince et al. (2002) found that hook-up 
