Circle hooks for trout

[Rickhem]

I have a different experience with using PowerBait with circles. Since we sold it at the place where I used to work, and since so many people used to ask about it, I figured I should be able to tell people how to use it successfully. For me, it was usually a dead-sticking proposition where I'd have one rod out with PowerBait while I threw spinners with another. As such, I used it with small circles, size 10 or 12, usually Gamagatsu. I'd ball up the PowerBait to cover the hook and use enough to make it float. Then I'd add a splitshot about 18-24 inches up the line, big enough to pull everything to the bottom. I'd cast it out and it would sink, but the PowerBait and hook would rise that 18-24" off the bottom where it was visible and available to the fish, not lost down in the weeds or between the rocks. I'd really only know I had a fish on by the line pulling out and that's where the circles did their thing, hooking the fish before I ever got to pick up the rod.
If you want to keep the fish, then don't bother with circles, but if you want to release them, or at least have that option, then the circles work.

Just my 2¢.