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From: Tiderunner
Date: 8/3/2017
Time: 9:24:30 AM
by using a circle hook the fish will most likely be hooked in the jaw or lip and it should be easy to remove the hook. Crushing the barb should not be necessary for Drum. I do crush my hooks when fishing for Albacore as time is very important when it comes to getting those fish back in the water before they die. A drum can stay out of the water for maybe 30 minutes an Albacore only 2 or 3.
Years ago I got to take part in one of the original circle hook studies done by NC Coast Watch, we went out with Capt. George Beckwith and caught drum in Pamlico Sound using both J and circle hooks.We Experimented with different length leaders and how well they survived being gut hooked. We would let the drum run on slack lines so they would really swallow the hooks. Then when we got them to the boat just cut the line at the lip and placed the drum in Pound nets after tagging them so a record could be kept. It was amazing but 90% of the drum that were gut hooked had worked the hooks out on their own after 3 days. But best was to just use a short leader and large circle hook and only about 1% would swallow the hook deep enough that it couldn't be removed with pliers.