Catfishing Dilema

[zippyFX]

Hi all,

As some of you may remember I have been doing a lot of catfishing in the evenings due to fishing time constraints. I really enjoy it but I have dilemma. I seem to be deeply hooking the catfish, forcing me to cut my leader and let the fish go with one or two hooks ingested. For catfish I am a catch and release guy so I am wondering how I could stop this.

My general rig is a leader with a treble at the end (for either dough or dip bait) which are usually of size 2. A second hook ( a circle hook) on the leader is usually 2 circle hook. In this hook I usually impale a beheaded and de-tailed large minnow for fresh bait (usually about 4 inches of fish on the hook when I'm done). At time I use to circles replace the treble. I am targeting largest fish hoping to get to 10 pounds. I am willing to sacrifice quantity for size.

Last night in an hour and half I caught one at 4 lbs and another one at 4 1/2 lbs. I had a couple of other good bites but my guess is that they were smaller and failed to take the bait.

The first fish had swallowed the treble so I cut the leader and set him free. The second fish ate the treble and worked it's way up to the circle hook and ate that as well.

I seem to remember when I was running a two circle hook leader by deep hook rate was about 50% while the rest were hooked properly in the corner of the mouth.

I guess I can always go larger but then I may loose the bite all together.

Anyway any suggestions on how to prevent deep hooking would be appreciated.

Note to OT: I got the long rod you recommended. It works great casting out my 3-4 OZ weights.