Trout Hooks

Information on Trout hooks and fly tying. Trout Hooks and fly tying for trout fly fishing.

TROUT HOOKS

Eyed Hooks for trout flies, and the general idea of attaching them to the end of the casting line direct, are not, as already pointed out, in any correct sense of the term novelties, eyed hooks having been alluded to as early as Hawker's edition of ' Walton's Angler,' temp. 1760. No great attention, however, appears to have been paid to the subject of Eyed Trout-hooks until comparatively recent times, when the question confined, at the particular period to which I am referring, to turn-up eyes was ventilated at considerable length in the columns of the Field and the Fishing Gazette by Mr. Hall. This was followed in the latter journal by a lively controversy on 'needleeyed ' hooks, initiated by myself ; and finally I invented, and published, the turn-down eyed hook, of which so much has since been written, for and against, by partisans of the old and the new schools, I have before explained why I feel released from the necessity of reprinting here the arguments pro and con these various systems viz., that to judge by the success of my own turn-down eyed hooks, and the opinions of fly-fishers and tackle makers, so far as I am able to gather them, that system is in rapid course of superseding all others. If this is the case with the original imperfect patterns, how much more likely is it to be so now, when, by the introduction of the up-turn shank, the hook has been, so to speak, perfected. . . .

To return, therefore, to my text.

The considerations already adduced in regard to the proper form of a large salmon hook hold good, c&teris paribus, and with increased cogency, in the case of a small trout hook, where of course the mechanical difficulties, first of hooking, and secondly of keeping hooked, are enormously increased. They are increased, in fact, exactly in the ratio of the size of the hook as compared with the size of the fish's mouth ... a number ooo is clearly much smaller in proportion to the mouth of a large trout than a number 17 or 18 is to the mouth of a well-grown salmon. The exact calculation I leave to the curious in figures. My system of eyed hooks is, however, applicable to all the ordinary hook-bends without exception, so that those who prefer one or the other of them to mine can reject the pattern and yet adopt the principle.

The fly-fisher who is sufficiently interested in the subject of hooks to read this chapter at all, will, I may assume, have read the preceding pages which deal, under the head of salmonhooks, with what I may call the ' natural history ' of my system. He will have seen the diagrams of the original bend of these down-eyed hooks, noticed the points wherein they were explained to be deficient, and grasped the change of principle introduced in the new patent up-turn shank by which they were perfected, including the insuring of the full * gape ' of the hook, and no more. I need not, therefore, go again over the same ground. It may, nevertheless, be well to illustrate, on a smaller scale more appropriate to trout -flies, the very important question of overand under-draft in these hooks.

Fig. 1. Original Turn-down eyed hook, with draft-line below true plane of hook-shank.

Fig. 2. Turn-up eyed pattern, with draft-line above the plane.

Fig. 3. New Patent Up-turn Shank and turn-down eyed hook correet draft-line.

The general changes in construction between the old and new forms of the hook will perhaps be most readily understood by contrasting some of the smaller sizes of each, including the sneck-bend form, in which the patent is also manufactured of the sizes shown. (Numbered according to ' New Scale.')

OLD PATTERN OF TURN-DOWN EYED PENNELL-SNECK ' HOOKS

(Patented U.S.A.)

NEW PATTERN DITTO WITH UP-TURN SHANK. (Patent United Kingdom, and U.S.A. ) Made both with straight ' and ' twist ' points.

OLD PATTERN OF TURN-DOWN ' PENNELL-I.IMERICK ' EYED HOOKS.

(Patented U.S.A.)

NEW PATTERN DITTO WITH UP-TUKN SHANK.

(Patented United Kingdom, and U.S.A.)

I have used both bends the Limerick and the Sneck with nearly equal success, but my inclination is rather to prefer the sneck pattern for small river flies, and also for brown-trout lake flies especially as ' droppers ' ; and the Limerick for anything larger, including of course salmon flies.

The illustrations give two lake flies tied on the two different bends :

'SNECK' BEND. 'LIMERICK' BEND

LAKE FLIES DRESSED ON EYED HOOKS WITH UP-TUKN SHANK, HOOKS. SMALL RIVER FLY, ON ' SNECK BEND.

It may, perhaps, be well for convenience of reference to repeat here the smaller sizes of Limerick hooks with plain shanks, ' un-eyed ' (upper figures, ' old ' or ' Redditch ' scale ; lower figures, 'new' scale), as well as the tapered-shank sneckbend hooks, which latter are made with points both straight and ' twisted,' or ' snecked.'

' PKNNELL-LIMERICK ' HOOKS WITH PLAIN SHANK. (Lower figures ' new' scale ; upper figures ' old,' or ' Redditeh,' scale.)

PENNELL-SNECK' HOOKS WITH PLAIN SHANK ('New Scale.')

EYED-HOOK ATTACHMENT

In earlier essays on the eyed-hook problem I recommended primarily on account of its simplicity an attachment known as the 'Jam Knot' ; but subsequently an automatic method was found of tying an equally simple and more efficient knot, which I christened the * Half-hitch Jam] and as this latter knot is decidedly stronger, and even more * un-slippable,' than the plain ' Jam,' whilst being applicable to a bare hook, as well as to a fly, I never now recommend anything else.

'PERFECTED HALF-HITCH JAM KNOT'

'The eyed hook is an English invention. First, we had Hall's " turned-up eyed hook," followed by a decided improvement in Cholmondeley-Pennell's "turn-down eyed hook." Improvement because the direction of the point of hook more nearly coincides with the direction of the pull of the line attached to the hook, giving greater penetrating power, or, in other words, it gets more fish. Of the invention of the eyed hook Mr. Frederic M. Halford, author of "Floating Flies and How to Dress them," says : "Before many years are passed the old-fashioned fly, dressed on a hook attached to a length of gut, will be practically obsolete, the advantage of the eyed hook being so manifest that even the most conservative adherents of the old school must, in time, be imbued with this most salutary reform."

' The eyed hook is a boon to the angler, if for no other reason than that of economy. The weak point of a fly tied on a gut length, is that part of the gut just above the shank of the hook. Scores and hundreds of flies are retired from service because of weakness at the point we have indicated. The fly may be perfect in body, wing, hackle and tail, and the hook as sound as when it left the shop of the maker, but when the gut is weakened at the end of the hook's shank the fly is useless. There are various reasons why the fly gives way first at this place. First of all he that does not allow sufficient time on the back cast will whip off the fly at every lick he makes, so we will not consider his case. In tying a fly it is finished at the head, the last turns of the silk are exposed and must be touched with shellac, and in doing this, although care is exercised, it sometimes happens that shellac gets on the gut. This acts like a waterproof coating, and at that particular point the gut will be hard and stiff after the balance of the gut length is softened from being in the water. An otherwise careful angler will at times, when a trout strikes short, in his desire to get his flies back on the water quickly, repeat his cast too rapidly. In putting a new fly on a cast, time may not be given for the gut to soak and soften before casting it. The two or three flies of a cast may have gut lengths of different thicknesses, and a back cast that will do no injury to the thin gut will at the same time crack the thicker gut, for be it known drawn gut will stand the grief of poor back casting that will ruin gut of twice or thrice its thickness. There are reasons enough why flies tied to gut break at the end of the shank ! But the eyed hook makes them all impotent. Again we quote from Mr. Halford's " Floating Flies,"etc:

" Flies dressed on eyed hooks float better and with less drying than those constructed on the old system. Another, and, in my opinion, paramount benefit is, that at the very earliesc symptom of weakness at the point of juncture of the head of the fly and gut (the point at which maximum wear and tear take place), it is only necessary in the case of the eyed fly to break it off and tie on afresh, sacrificing at most a couple of inches of the fine end of the cast, while in the case of the hook on gut, the fly has become absolutely useless and beyond repair. It must also be remembered that with eyed hooks the angler can use gut as coarse or as fine as he may fancy for the particular day, while with flies on gut he would require to have each pattern dressed on two or three different thicknesses."

With the invention of the eyed hook came the question of how to fasten it to gut length or leader. For bait fishing there was no trouble about attaching the gut to the bare hook, but with feathers, on a small hook particularly, to be considered and not ruffled in the operation, it became quite another matter. Mr. Pennell credits Mr. Alexander J. Campbell with perfecting what has been known in connection with the Pennell turn-down eyed hook as the " Jam Knot," and with which our readers, who are fly fishermen, must be familiar. Major Turle invented a knot known by his name, and used for fixing gut to a bare eyed hook. This knot has been used to fasten a fly to the leader, but it is not necessary to illustrate it. ...

We have mentioned these " back number "knots to pave the way for an article from the pen of Mr. Pennell, taken from the last Pishing Gazette, in which he describes and illustrates a knot which supersedes all others for fastening leaders or gut lengths to flies tied on eyed hooks. We have tried this latest discovery of Mr. Pennell's on large and small flies, and found it so simple and so secure that we recommend the knot above all others for securing the eyed hook fly to leader or gut length, and that the knot may be fully understood we have had cuts made similar to those in Mr. Pennell's article, which are here reproduced :

'THE HALF-HITCH JAM KNOT PERFECTED FOR FLIES, BY H. CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL.

" The success of the turn-down eyed hook was to no inconsiderable extent due, as far as the artificial fly is concerned, to the discovery, by Mr. A. J. Campbell, of an automatic method of tying the jam knot, which I at once adopted, and I believe communicated to the columns of the Fishing Gazette."

" Up to that time a variety of ' dodges,' such as Farlow's ' Fly Protector,' were had recourse to to meet the difficulty of clearing the feathers when manipulating the knot. But they were merely 'palliatives,' and only substituted one inconvenience for another.

'"With the discovery of an automatic method of knotting, a real ' transformation scene ' took place, and the eyed-hook problem made a broad stride towards solution. Indeed, for my own part, I could have been well content to rest and be thankful ' at the point of practical perfection then reached. . . . But there are brethren of the angle good sportsmen and true' weak-kneed' as to their faith in the non-slippableness of the simple jam knot under every circumstance, and in fact they are so far admittedly right that if the eye happened to be too coarse, and the gut happened to be too fine, and the 4 spare end ' happened to be cut off too close, it is quite conceivable such a catastrophe as a critical slip might occur ! . . . In any case, however, it is good to please all sides, wherever such a consummation is attainable, and as I have found a still simpler automatic method of tying a still stronger form of jam knot, I take advantage of the columns of the Fishing Gazette to make it public.

FIG. A. PRINCIPLE OF ' THE HALF-HITCH JAM KNOT.'

Fig. A shows the principle of the knot as applied to a bare hook. Tighten the coil around the hook shank, and pull on the main link, and you have a 'jam knot' plus a 'half-hitch 'the ' half-hitch jam,' as it has been christened. It is, in fact, the knot which I have always used and recommended for a bare hook (in preference to the ' Turle ' or any other knot), in consequence of its combined neatness and absolute security from slipping ; but hitherto I have used it for a bare hook only, because on a bare hook there were no feathers to inter* fere with the manipulation, and no one had discovered any way of producing it, like the plain jam knot, automatically. A method has now been discovered, and the process is even simpler and quicker than the other. Thus : take the fly in the left hand, with the eye turned upwards (position shown in the cut). Pass the gut through the eye, towards the hookbend; make a half-hitch or ' half-knot ' as represented, Fig. B; and drawing in and tightening the main link with the third and fourth fingers of the right hand, and * humouring ' the gut the while, push, with the finger and thumb, the l noose ' (which forms itself in the act), over the eye, and pull taut.

FIG, B. AUTOMATIC WAY OF TYING THE ' HALF-HITCH JAM KNOT.'

" The knot shown in principle in Fig. A will then be found to have practically and perfectly arranged itself round the neck of the eye, which it * grips ' like grim death.

"The 'set' of the fly on gut thus tied is excellent; nor does it matter from which side of the main link the knot forming the half hitch jam is tied, the result will always be the same. It would appear, in fact, almost impossible to tie it wrongly.

" N.B. The gut should always, of course, be properly soaked.

"As to a minor detail; when the knot is pulled tight, the spare end of the gut will point backwards, towards the fly-tail, so as to mix with the hackles, and be out of sight ; whilst in the original simple jam knot the gut end stood out more or less at right angles, '"I think with this knot the most exacting and timid of fly-fishers will be satisfied. It is, of course, only applicable to my own patterns of turn-down eyed hooks with small eyes. For large-eyed hooks, or in the case of my own salmon hooks with ' returned ' eyes, the double or single slip knot, with the gut passing twice through the eye, will still be, as heretofore, the proper attachment." ' Shooting and Fishing (Boston, U.S.A.),

HALF-HITCH JAM KNOT ' COMPLETED.

One more quotation. This is taken from a letter from Mr. Thomas Carr, and published in England, giving a detailed account of his trout-fishing in Tasmania from April 1893 to April 1897, during which period there is recorded the capture of 1,162 fish weighing roughly 4^ tons. This is Mr. Carr's testimony to the excellence of the manufacture of my eyed hooks by Messrs. Wm. Bartleet & Sons ;

May 15, 1897. To Messrs. Wm. Bartleet and Sons, Redditch, England.

Gentlemen, Doubtless you will be glad of some recognition of the value placed upon your eyed flies in Tasmania. I have used them continuously for the past five years, have never broken a hook, and have taken many hundreds of fish each season ; in fact, I have a Black Palmer I have taken 100 fish on, and still it is usable. Accept my thanks for what I consider a real boon to all piscators. Yours truly,

THOMAS CARR (of Launceston, Tasmania).

The great thing in dressing all flies on these eyed hooks is to leave clear the 'neck,' as shown in the diagrams (pp. 7, 22), to receive the knot. The length of the hook-shank both in the case of salmon and trout hooks is specially designed to allow of this.

The article already quoted from Sporting and Fishing explains the most salient defects of the old system of lapping on hooks and flies to separate strands of gut. Of minor, but still serious drawbacks, must be reckoned the difficulty of carrying about a sufficient supply of ' gut hooks ' or still more of flies of all needful sizes, and the destructive effects of time upon the contents of the 'stock box.' Apart from ' moth,' this happens partly owing to the ' rotting ' of the gut at the point" of contact with the steel hook shank, and partly to the desiccation (drying up) of the wax on the lapping by which the gut is attached.

And all these defects defects inherent in the principle of lapped-on hooks, and which cannot be gainsaid are at once overcome by the new eyed-hook system.

Jt is that system to which I refer when I say that by it all the disadvantages attaching either to the artificial fly or plain hook lapped on separate strands of gut are entirely got rid of.

By knotting on the fly or hook direct to the main line (' gut-trace,' ' collar,' * casting-line,' * bottom-line,' * foot-line ') the fly or hook that has become worn at the head can be removed, and in a few seconds re-attached to the same already well-soaked, well-tapered, and evenly tinted line; thereafter remaining as serviceable as ever.

The minor drawbacks alluded to of the old system are also obviated by the new, as the necessary selection of flies and hooks can be kept in stock for years without any fear of deterioration. The economy in the matter of space, both in the stock-box and fly-book, is, moreover, considerable. As many flies or hooks as are required for a day's fishing could be carried, I might almost say, in the waistcoat pocket. Indeed, I have now before me just such a fly-box (made by Foster's, of Ashbourne) not a bit too large to be carried in the pocket of the waistcoat, being barely 3 inches long by ij inch wide, and containing eight strips of cork. It ought to carry easily thirty-two small flies or half that number of loch-flies, whilst still leaving plenty of space ' between decks ' so as to avoid crushing the hackles and wings. But this is only a minor detail incident to the system.

Published testimonies to the success of the eyed-hook principle generally are now too numerous to attempt even to give a summary of them; and, indeed, are hardly necessary, as the prophecy of a well-known writer, that ' before many years are passed the old-fashioned fly, dressed on a hook attached to a length of gut, will be practically obsolete,' is already in great measure fulfilled, and in visiting the angling centres I generally find the best fly-fishers, especially of the younger generation, are using the Eyed-Hook.

A few parting words before I close this subject.

There have, it is well known, and as I have already explained, been at various times attempts to introduce some form of direct attachment between the trace and its steel appendage, and many forms of eyed hooks have been invented with that object: hooks with turn up eyes, hooks with 'needle' eyes, hooks with ' straight ' eyes, hooks with ' crooked ' eyes cum multis aliis ; but none of these have obtained any very general or ready acceptance on the part of the fishing public. Indeed I may say that all the patterns of eyed hooks I have personally examined and tested are open to serious practical objections of one sort or another either in connection with the make or position of the eye, or in regard to the mode of knotting it on to the line objections which doubtless explain their partial or non-success. I trust, however, that their inventors pioneers, explorers, and discoverers in the new field, to whose labours I more than any one else am indebted * will not imagine that I desire for one moment to depreciate in to Mr. R. B. Marston, of the Fishing Gazette, the columns of which were for several years freely opened to the discussion of this all-important angler's qzt&sfio vexata, the thanks of the angling public, and my own in particular, are also due.

Any way their excellent work; still less to exalt my own small efforts at their expense. Indeed, as I have before said, it is want of space simply, and not want of courtesy, which precludes my attempting, within the limits at my disposal, to pourtray and describe their several ingenious plans the progenitors, so to speak, of my own system and especially the turn-up eye hook of my friend Mr. H. S. Hall, which is still used by many good fly-fishers, whose enthusiasm carries them triumphantly over all defects, or what I regard as defects. ... I have, nevertheless, a plain task set before me, of which I must acquit myself in a plain businesslike way. What I have to say and without the saying of which this chapter would have no raison d^tre is that in my opinion all these systems of eyed hooks are defective, and that their defects have proved a bar to their general adoption ; whereas, on the other hand, I believe that the system which I have presented for judgment to the parliament of anglers has 910 defects, but is a thoroughly workable and practical system complete in all its details, and for that reason must eventually force its way to universal acceptance.

I have entrusted the manufacture of all my patent and other hooks to Messrs. Wm. Bartleet & Sons, the well-known hook-making firm at Redditch, who have for several years acted as my wholesale agents, and whose success in manufacturing the various patterns leaves nothing to be desired. If the hooks are not 'genuine,' I cannot, of course, hold myself responsible for any failures or defects.

The very general adoption of the Eyedhook system has called forth numerous ingenious arrangements in the way of boxes for storing and carrying the flies. The following are amongst the best of these useful inventions, which in the cases of boxes intended for salmon flies are equally applicable to flies with ordinary gut loops.

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