FLYMPH FORUM

Mike - I love your posts. You are a wellspring of information and I learn something every time I read them. Thanks for sharing.

Mike

Methods of attaching leader around the shank are not forgotten here in the Pacific Northwest. Some steelheaders still use knots through the eye and around the shank and you can find an occasional blind eye iron swimming in our streams. Some of us tie a few flies in the box with more space between the head and the eye in mind for more room for knots and an occasional riffling hitch.

Earlier in my poorly worded quick edit on top of edit reply to tie2fish about the Mustad in the Moorhen and Purple I merely meant to imply that you understood that some people tie with their own consideration about the fishing characteristics of hook choice more than visual aesthetics that relate more to public fly display.

Some of the European hooks are not well regarded down here. Too soft and bend out to easily. Never used (or seen) them but I would probably not go near a lot of them. To be fair the likes of the Tiemco100 is also far too soft for our fish. Most dries on Tiemcos would be on 9300s and my go to hook for sub surface is a Kamasan B170 or B175..

Thanks for the information Mike.
If you re-temper a hook it would seem to me that you have a good chance of increasing the carbon content and having a hook that is too brittle. If you re-tempered a lot of hooks I guess that you would soon learn what in induce into the metal to make it function to your liking.

Other than checking for sharpness and bending a hook, what testing do you normally do?

Thanks

Ralph

WOW! Mike, thank you for all the concern, time and energy it takes to contribute like you do. Again, WOW! and TKX!

I am about to try to reorganize my hook collection. However, I am torn about my soft hackle hooks. I would love to see this as a sticky. Could we have a running list here, on the best soft hackle hooks? Like Spider hook, flymph hook...whatever? (TDE vs TUE hooks for flymphs too) I just read where someone posted about a Kamasan B525 is close to the Daiichi Alec Jackson hook. I looked, and sure enough, the similarity is incredible. If the Kamasan is cheaper, and basically the same hook, I want to get some of those!! A hook review, or poll would be nice too. I have a small collection of hooks, but would like to widen my selection. I would LOVE to try Kamasan hooks, but it seems they may be hard for us in the USA to buy. My favorite all around hook company is Daiichi. But I use hooks from almost all manufacturers. This would be an awesome thing to have for people, and it would save typing over and over what hooks are preferred. I am getting more hook boxes, and I need to put labels for each category, before I had a mess like now. I have dry fly hooks next to nymph hooks, I may have 3 streamer hooks in that same box. I am trying to make boxes separate, such as dry fly, streamer 2x-5x, streamer box for featherwings, soft hackle hooks, salt water...you get the idea.
http://globalflyfisher.com/streamers/ra ... /hooks.htm
I refer to this chart a lot for streamers. Is there another chart similar for flymphs, soft hackles and the like? I must also say the reference material here already is very impressive. Thank you for such a great job, I read through a lot of this already.

I got my hook boxes in the mail. I guess nobody has seen this note, previously.

You are correct about the similarities between the Kamasan, Daiichi and Alec Jackson hooks. I think the latter two are by Daiichi.
I probably psoed about the B525 some time ago. This hook is classified as a 'coarse fishing' hook in the UK and does not attract the higher price. However the same hook is available as a 'fly tying' hook (I think it was one of the B400 series) and at twice the price.
We now have the Partridge 'Spider' hooks. This is a straight eyed Captain Hamilton and I am unsure whether I like them.
I am so in love with the Kamasan (aka Daiichi/Alec Jackson) hook that it is unlikely that I will change (I have thousands of them anyway). I like the thickness, bend and the eye and I get more kook ups with it than I have had with the same patterns on different hooks. Plus I like to look of them.

http://www.thamesvalleyflydressers.co.u ... AN2012.pdf

This is a link to a hook reference chart.

dd

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