Hook
A recurved piece of metal wire, one end of which tapers to a sharp point, used to impale and capture fish.
Also known as a fishhook, a hook is truly an indispensable piece of sportfishing equipment. Tens of millions of hooks are manufactured daily around the world for use in both sportfishing and commercial fishing, and some manufacturers have tens of thousands of individual hook models. For sportfishing use, hooks are stand-alone equipment used as is with various types of natural or processed bait; they are attached as is or with dressing to an extremely diverse range of hard and soft artificial lures; they are dressed with various materials to become artificial flies; and they are used in molds for the construction of lead and hard-metal lures.
The hook originated long before any other fishing equipment, having been used in some form with spearing instruments in prehistoric time. It is speculated that the oldest fishhooks were made out of wood during the Stone Age, possibly evolving at the same time as gorges. A tree with branches that stick out at acute angles can be the source of a hook strong enough for angling, but the deterioration of wood precludes finding ancient evidence of this.
It is known, however, that gorges were used to capture fish during the Stone Age. These were straight, tapered shafts made of bone, stone, shell, wood, etc., that were placed inside a natural bait to lodge in the stomach or mouth of a fish. Hooks made of bone were used during the latter period of the Stone Age. When used for hooks, bone had a tendency to break, although it withstood hard use, even in saltwater. Historians report that processing bone hooks took patience, but Stone Age people had implements good enough to make extra-fine hooks from this material. Old bone hooks have been unearthed in many places, including Europe, Egypt, and Palestine. The oldest bone hook found in Palestine is reportedly 9,000 years old. Although there was a lot of diversity to the oldest bone hooks, they were not made with barbs, which developed much later.
Hook material evolved over thousands of years from bone to copper to bronze and then iron. The genesis of modern hooks was during the Middle Ages. It is not known exactly when fine hooks for sportfishing were fashioned from steel needles, but the use of steel hooks was noted in print for the first time by Dame Juliana Berners in her 1496 essay Treatyse of Fysshynge With an Angle; this essay was included in the second edition of The Boke of Saint Albans, the first known manual of sportfishing. Dame Berners recommended using the finest darning needles for small fish, embroidery needles for larger fish, and tailor’s or shoemaker’s needles for the biggest fish, and she also detailed how to make the steel pliable, fashion a barb, and shape and temper the steel.
Hooks were being manufactured as a business in the seventeenth century, when Izaak Walton recommended buying hooks from London’s Charles Kirby, whom he described in The Compleat Angler as “the most exact and best Hook-maker this nation affords.” Kirby is credited with the advancement of the modern fishhook—through his metal tempering and hardening processes—and the invention of the kirbed offset, which is still in use today.
Hooks were largely made by hand until mechanization took over in the middle of the nineteenth century. For a time, England was the hook-making center of the world (the town of Redditch in particular), and this still accounts for the names that were given to many of the popular patterns that have stayed throughout the years.
Today hook manufacture is widely dispersed around the globe, and there is an astounding array of hooks in production—many quite similar and many vastly different—and the number of patterns and sizes is impressive and confusing. The array of hooks is due to fishing methods, the differing mouths of fish, and the lures and bait used to attract them.
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Characteristics
The majority of fishhooks are made from high carbon steel; a good number are made from stainless steel, and some are made from alloys. The physical parts of a hook include the eye, shank, bend, point, gap, and throat, as depicted in the accompanying illustration. The point may have a barb, and the eye may actually be flattened solid instead of having an eyelike opening. All of these parts have notable features and variations.
In the most basic evaluation of a hook, there are three commonly accepted types described according to the number of points. These are characterized as single, double, or treble hooks; quadruple hooks (four points) have been produced but are not currently in sportfishing use.
Single hooks are the most common hook and the overwhelming favorite for fishing with most types of bait; they are used on all but a tiny percentage of artificial flies and are attached to many types of lures. Double hooks are by far the least common type; they are mainly used in tying artificial flies, but some are employed in baitfishing, and some are fastened to weedless lures. Treble hooks are very popular on a wide range of lures, which are prerigged by lure manufacturers; they are almost never used in fly tying and are only occasionally fished with bait.
Eye
The eye is the portion of the hook to which the line is attached, and it probably should be called the **** or line connector because it is not always shaped like an eye. The most popular eye style is the ball, which is also known as a ring eye and has a straight-cut end that meets flush with the stem of the eye. A similar but more expensive-to-produce version is the tapered eye, which has a taper-cut end that meets the stem. In both of these, there should be no gap that fishing line can slip through; if a gap exists, the hook is poorly made and you should discard it.
Other eye styles include the oval and needle, which are common on treble hooks, and the looped, which is a traditional style for salmon and steelhead flies. Several versions of open eyes exist; these have a ringlike end. Open eyes are intended for easy changing on lures where hooks are prerigged to lure bodies without split rings; they are subject to loss if the eye isn’t fully closed (you need very good pliers) and also to weakening if they are opened and closed a few times.
In addition to being characterized according to shape, an eye can be typecast according to position. Eyes may be straight (in line with the hook), turned up, or turned down; turned-up eyes are preferred on short-shanked heavily dressed flies, and turned-down eyes are preferred by some people for their line of hook penetration. Angled eyes are often snelled to the line when used with bait.
Eyeless hooks are those in which the line is snelled to the shank, since there is no ring or loop to fasten a knot to. The ends of the eyeless hooks are flattened, often to a spadelike form or a knob. These hooks are popular in Europe for coarse and match fishing, especially with very fine-diameter lines and small bait.
Shank
The shank is that part of the hook between the eye and the bend. Hook patterns have a normal or standard length, but they come several sizes larger and smaller in shank length. A short or long shank designation means that the length of the shank of that item is equal to that of the next smaller or larger regular-shank hook of the same pattern. Variations of more than one step are denoted by the letter X or the word “extra.” A short-shanked 2X hook, for example, is equal in shank length to a regular-shank hook of the same pattern that is two sizes smaller.
Shanks are straight, bent, curved, humped, and contorted in various ways. Certain styles are favored for their hooking efficiency or for their appearance when dressed with various materials. A keel or humped shank, for example, is popularly used with Texas-rigged soft worms and also for tying some streamer flies. Some shanks have multiple curves for rotating into the fish’s mouth, although these may not be as strong as other models. Most shanks are smooth, but some have multiple slices on the upper and lower portions. These are like mini-barbs and are meant for holding bait or soft-bodied lures; hooks with this feature are usually called baitholders. Some shanks also sport a small weight on the shank, either near the bend or just behind the eye; these are mainly used with soft lures that are rigged Texas style without a slip sinker.
Point
The point is the tapered sharp business end of the hook. It may or may not incorporate a barb, which is the sharp projection behind the point that impedes the hook’s backward movement when it has impaled a fish (or clothing, skin, etc.).
Hook points have many configurations. The more common ones in sportfishing hooks are needle or conical, hollow, curved or rolled, knife, and spear or superior. Penetration and holding power are the critical elements of a point. Especially noted for their penetration are the needle point, which is conical in shape, and the knife point, which has triangulated sharp edges. The curved point, which rolls inward toward the shank, has an inward line of pull that helps to keep the hook driving in under sustained pressure.
It is arguable whether long or short points penetrate better, and this is a matter of the sharpness of the hook, the point style, the fish species, and the hooksetting abilities of the angler, as well as the size of the barb in some cases. If a point is long but slender, it should penetrate as well as one that is short but thicker, although points that are too long are weaker.
As a result of improved manufacturing processes, the sharpness of hooks has progressed significantly in recent years. This is an important advancement because sharpness is the one hook property that anglers readily see the value of. Although most new hooks can still be improved by sharpening (see: hook sharpening), many of the new chemically sharpened hooks are very sharp when fresh. This chemical operation incorporates a series of dips and rinses in extremely potent acids that shave off a tiny layer of the surface of the steel. The result is a perfect shape and superb sharpness.
Hook points primarily lie parallel to the shank when viewed from a straight-on position. However, the point, and sometimes part of the bend, may be offset to one side, in theory for better hooking. If viewed from a straight-on position, a point is called kirbed (after Charles Kirby) when the point is angled to the left of the perpendicular plane; it is called reversed when it is angled to the right. These are more likely to be used in bottom fishing situations with bait than in circumstances where an actively moving hook can drag in the water and cause spinning.
The points of some hooks may also have a wire or nylon guard. Hooks so equipped are called weedless, and the guard extends from the hook eye to the point.
Barb
Barbs exist on the majority of manufactured hooks. Those without them are labeled barbless. Many anglers pinch or file a barb down to make a hook barbless. Some hooks have a slight, smooth bump along the lower point in lieu of a barb. The purpose of the barb is to hold the hook in the fish. A large barb is not necessarily helpful in this regard and may actually make it harder to attain full penetration of the point, not to mention create a large entry hole that can cause the hook to slip out when you don’t want it to. Barbless hooks facilitate hook removal and may be mandated in some waters to minimize injury to fish that are released.
The role of a barb in keeping fish on the hook is greatly overrated; many anglers have little or no loss of fish on barbless hooks provided that good fish-playing measures are employed (see: catch-and-release). Nevertheless, it is often hard to find barbless hooks in the range of styles and sizes that you may want.
You can make your own hooks barbless by filing off the barb or by pinching it down. Filing works best with small fine-diameter wire hooks. To pinch the barb down, use a pair of good-quality pliers, place the blunt end over the barb, and squeeze tightly to flatten the barb. Sharpen the point well afterward. Remember to maintain a constant tight line on a fish when using barbless hooks, because the hooks can easily become dislodged if there is even momentary slack in the line.
Bend/pattern
The name by which a style of hook is known is called a pattern, and this is a function of its bend, which is the curved section between the point and the shank. The bend has a lot to do with the strength of the hook. Ideally a hook should resist bending up to a stage where the hook almost would break, preferably bending instead of breaking. Resistance to direct-pull pressure is influenced by hook style and size, is substantially aided by forging, and is related to the bite and gap. The gap is the distance between the tip of the point and the shank. The distance from the peak of the bend to the gap is known as the bite or throat. Most hooks have a deep or relatively deep bite and a fairly wide gap, both of which keep hooked fish more secure than a shallow bite or narrow gap.
Most hooks avoid having a sharp angle to the bend and are formed such that the initial stage of the bend is gradual and the final stage of the bend is pronounced. This design is actually less easily bent than a symmetrically round one.
Popular patterns and attributes include:
Sproat Straight point; popular with flies and lures.
Kirby Point offset helps prevent hook from slipping out; good for baitfishing.
O’Shaughnessy Outward bend to the tip of the point; heavy wire; many applications.
AberdeenLight wire, round bend good for use with minnows; will bend before breaking.
CarlisleStronger than Aberdeen; used with bait; long shank prevents fish from swallowing the hook.
Siwash Heavy wire; extra-long point offers good retention; used for big, active fish.
Salmon Egg Short shank; concealed by small bait.
Claw or Beak Point is offset and curved inward to aid penetration; used often with bait.
Limerick Long shank, wide bend provides extra hooking space.
There are many more patterns, of course, and many with very specialized applications. Freshwater bass anglers, for example, have such an affinity for fishing with soft lures, especially worms, that there is a whole genre of so-called worm hooks (which should not be confused with fishing with natural worms) having various humps and bends to the shanks, as well as different bends and worm-rigging enhancements. One of the more specialized saltwater hooks is a circle hook, which has become very popular in baitfishing, especially for tuna, but also other species. The circle hook has a wide bend and long inward point that at first glance makes you wonder how it could ever stick a fish, but not only does it stick the fish, it also doesn’t pull out very easily under fishing rod pressure, so a greater number of fish hooked are landed.
Size/gauge/temper
No matter what the pattern, hooks are all designated according to size, which in principle is the width of the gap. This is just a relative designation, however, instead of an absolute one. Gap width may differ between families of hooks, and there is no consistency between manufacturers in sizing, so the matter of size designation is relative to individual manufacturers and specific patterns.
Sizes are specified in whole numbers at the smaller end of the spectrum and as “aught” fractions as they get larger. The smallest hooks, depending on manufacturer, are No. 32, 30, or 28; the largest hooks range from 14/0 up to 19/0.
Although not reflected in size designations, the diameter of the wire used to make the hook has a bearing on its performance and its proper use. This diameter is reached in manufacturing by taking steel wire rods and reducing them to the wire gauge that is necessary for a particular pattern. The wire is pulled through a series of ever-narrowing orifices, which reduce the gauge, sometimes by as much as 90 percent.
There are fine, medium, and heavy wire gauges corresponding to relative diameter. Heavy wire is used in making hooks for the strongest applications and for situations where it is beneficial for a hook to sink fast (large wet flies, for example, or big-game baitfishing); fine wire is used in making hooks for light-line fishing, angling with small and delicate bait, and in slow-sinking or floating uses; and medium wire is used for general-purpose hooks.
In the manufacturing process, the drawn wire is machined into shape and then heat-tempered. Tempering is the hardening process that gives the material its strength within that shape. It is a critical operation, because overtempering results in soft hooks that don’t adequately resist bending and undertempering results in hard hooks with no flexibility. The ideal is a strong hook that will flex moderately; if the hook has no flex under load, the hook will snap at less of a load. (Incidentally, with the exception of some light-wire hooks, like Aberdeen patterns, when a hook bends out of its original shape and does not spring back, it is permanently deformed and should be discarded.) Some hooks are also given extra strengthening by forging, which is stamping the sides flat. Although this increases resistance to bending on a straight pull, it does not help resist side torque and is often not found on hooks with offset points for this reason, since offset points do not resist side pressure as well as straight points.
Finish/corrosion resistance
In the manufacturing process, different finishes are applied to hooks to provide either cosmetic value (appealing to the angler or, in a few cases, to the fish) or corrosion resistance. Some carbon steel hooks are given color varnishes or lacquers; these are mainly blue, black, bronze, green, and red, but fluorescent and luminescent colors are also applied. Tin, cadmium, nickel, black nickel, gold, and chrome/zinc platings are applied to other carbon steel hooks. Most stainless steel hooks receive no finishing after being polished.
Of the tinted varnishes, bronze is most common and also the most basic one for freshwater use, though it (and the other varnishes) has low corrosion resistance. Gold finishing may involve plating 24 karat gold in better hooks or lacquering lesser-quality products with brass; these are strictly used in freshwater because of low corrosion resistance, and mainly with Aberdeen and salmon egg hooks. Nickel is also a prevalent freshwater finish; it results from electroplating, provides a shiny silver appearance, and has better corrosion resistance than bronze.
An advanced version of nickel plating, called electroless nickel, has an improved corrosion resistance and sharper hooks than standard nickel-plated hooks. A related new multiple-layer finish is nickel Teflon, which is a durable hook with a fast hooksetting property due to the slick Teflon exterior. Black nickel, which is not well known to many anglers, is a newer multiple-layer (zinc oxide over nickel) finish that has a silvery black appearance; it has more corrosion resistance than all of the aforementioned finishes.
Electroplated tin is a standard saltwater finish for carbon steel hooks; this is a step up the corrosion-resistance scale from the aforementioned finishes and is itself exceeded by cadmium-tin plating and chrome-zinc plating, which are finishes that receive different trademark names with different manufacturers. Cadmium is a substance with adverse environmental implications, so manufacturers who use chrome-zinc plating point out the additional safety value of chrome-zinc. These finishes rank with or actually exceed stainless steel in corrosion-resistant properties.
Obviously the ability of hooks to withstand corrosion varies, particularly in saltwater, and is an important aspect of selection. No finish is completely rustproof. As a material, carbon steel is significantly less resistant to corrosion than stainless steel or cadmium-tin and chrome-zinc. Freshwater anglers seldom use the latter three finishes in ordinary fishing activities. In any environment, however, if a hook sits in a wet tray for a long period of time, it will corrode; however, the most important aspect of corrosion applies to hooks purposely left in fish that are to be released (a common occurrence, especially when using bait) or to hooks inadvertently stuck in escaped fish.
Some tests have shown that varnished hooks (bronze, blue, etc.) and nickel or gold hooks, which are most common in freshwater, will break down (defined as being well corroded, brittle, and unusable though not totally decomposed) in two to three weeks of freshwater immersion, compared with 48 to 54 hours in saltwater. Thus, saltwater anglers should not regularly use varnished, plain nickel, and gold hooks unless they release a lot of fish with hooks in them. Stainless steel and cadmium-tin hooks take an indeterminate time to break down in freshwater. In saltwater, stainless steel hooks may take several months to break down, and still longer to decompose entirely. Cadmium-tin takes even longer. Thus, freshwater anglers have virtually no need to use highly corrosion-resistant finishes in freshwater.
The more that a hook is used—meaning that it is sharpened and comes into contact with rocks, sand, and even the teeth of fish—the less resistance it has to corrosion, since the finish becomes partly removed and the underlying carbon steel is exposed.
See Bait; Fly; Hook Sharpening; Lure.
Eye
Shank
Gap
Throat
Point
Bend
Ball
Tapered
Looped
Open
Needle
Spade End
Straight
Kinked
Weighted
Baitholder
Rotating hook
Regular
Forged
Cross Sections
Needle
Hollow
Curved in
Superior
Forged needle
Knife
Kirbed
Straight
Reversed
Full
Partial
Minimal
Barbed points
Straight
Humped
Barbless points
Hook Sizes
Single
Double
Treble
Eyes
Straight
Up
Down
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons,Inc.,(Fish illustrations © 1999 David Kiphuth.)
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