Thread: bending your hooks?

Well, with so much fishing pressure on the pond I am fishing in the bream are getting pickier. The other day I was getting tired of them stealing the salted shrimp off of my hook w/o getting a fish. I took a #8 aberdeen J hook and bent the shank in the middle about 20 degrees so that the barb pointed straight towards the eye of the hook.

This really improved my hook up ratio. Curious if anyone else has tried this? I have been fishing with a variety of hooks lately and went through a couple circle and straight hooks of various sizes and was still getting the bait stolen. I suppose by bending the shank I ended up with something a bit like a tiny kahle hook.