Several charter skippers in Sitka including Tom Ohouse now use circles when mooching. They work great. As I'm sure you know, the only problem is you can't be jerking to set the hok. Tom says he beleives he hooks almost as many on the circles and lands more of the ones he hooks. I plan to swith to circles for all my mooching.

it seems like a win/win to me. i can release unwanted fish with less change of damage and lose fewer of the fish i hook. I have used circles for sailfish. marlin, halibut and rockfish. They always seem to work just fine.