New Spider Hooks

[Ron Eagle Elk]

After looking at that hook a couple of different times, I must admit it's growing on me. Nah, I actually like the look of it and will probably try a few. Now if they were just blind eye. I have some silk gut and horsehair that needs some hooks.

REE

[willowhead]

Waz-a-matter..........you got no clippers?

[North Country Angler]

The Brown Owl dressed on the new Spider hooks.

[willowhead]

i still think the hook (it's looks) suckx! But your dressing is gorgeous.

[North Country Angler]

Looks pretty nice.......

Your first post of the subject!

[willowhead]

yes, your right........i was being cordial/positive/whatever.....later i came to my senses.......... ...........hey, undoubtedly that hook will (by the looks of it) do a great job of hooking fish...........and over the years i think we all have pretty much gathered, that fish don't seem to be bothered that much by the pressence of a hook..........they gotta eat. i'm simply sayin'..............the hook is boring, to look at...........has no distinction.........for me.
aint no biggie.........different strokes for different folks. if it boats your float...........knock yourself out.

[Otter]

....the hook is boring, to look at...........has no distinction.........for me.
aint no biggie

Mark, that is indeed a classic Willowheadism, god bless yer tablets. send me a few please.

Let me see, yes its got an eye, a bend , a shank, a gape, a barb - hmm all them are pretty basic requirements for a barbed hook. Wide gaped, straight eyed - that's positive. NCA's well tied spider does to the human eye look well proportioned on that hook. Weight ? - ain't seen one , so cannot tell.

So while Mark with the eye of an artist sees bugger all in the hook to get excited about, me with the eye of a cynic that is totally and utterly bored with the annual fashion parade of new products from the gurus of industry - i see the wide gape and decent length hook shank on a bronze hook and I can see that assuming its temper is better than my own then it could prove useful. I suppose poor old alec jackson shall disappear of the shelves of commerce and be replaced by this for a year or two or maybe every tier should buy a bucket load of both.

But as Willowhead says what ever floats your boat or from me, whoever tugs your wallet hardest, wins

By the way NCA, there's no denying your tying skills, very pretty.

[willowhead]

i apologise for being so one track minded.............all i care about in a hook is it's asthetic qualities..........how it fishes and all that is a very secondary consideration.......i've given away more hooks than i've used in the last decade........and will continue to do so, along with swaping them for "things"......
just my way of sharing what we all share in the spirit of the angle...........i "almost" wish i could stop buying things........... it's such a sickness......
one thing's for SURE.....i'd never buy a hook that ugly...............

Gotta go, watching something on ebay..............

[Otter]

i apologise for being so one track minded

No need to apologise, if you dig deep, many of us are one track minded - just running on different tracks, or at different points on the track, thats all.

Theres no denying that we have to consider that some will look at hooks purely from a joint tying and fishing perspective and others from a only tying perspective. The attitudes may be the same or may be poles apart.

One obvious distinction in attitude relates to hook gape. If your preference for most applications is wide gape, then anything with a narrow gape simply does not match your hook image ( similar to a trouts prey image ) and this is even more pronounced in the narrow gape camp where a wide gape will look downright ugly.

Two hooks that I have used a lot is the Kamasan B160 and the Kamasan B 980 (kamasan version of Daichi 1640) - strong, short shank, wide gape - from 14's up they look okay - take a 12 though and the gape looks wrong - off course it isn't but its hard to shake off the illusion. For that reason if the new partridge hooks are up to scratch then they will be useful.

It is interesting the way hooks are often viewed and probably speaks volumes in terms of our ability as tyers to behave in an often contradictory manner.

If we look at the example of spiders where the body is tied short , the common almost universal stance is that the trout ignore the fact that the fly has a substantial amount of hook jutting out its posterior. the trout sees what it wants to see etc... So in order to have a hook of desirable weight and hooking power then tying short is justifiable. It is generally accepted that many subsurface patterns were tied short for this very reason - and so grew the perception that our prey images for the profile of spider allowed us to accept this.

Since there are short shank hooks available, down eyed, up eyed, straight eyed - what is the need for this new partridge hook for SPIDERS ? ( i can think of other uses where they may fill a gap in my armoury ). Off course one needs to see these hooks before making too big a comment one way or another.

Our prey images of fly proportions are ingrained - if we believe that trout ignore or discount the hook in its determination of whether our fly is indeed food then does it not make sense for any tier holding this belief, when tying fishing flies to also ignore the hook sticking out the flies posterior. To me it makes a lot more sense to consider overall weight of hook (for your application and way of fishing) , its gape , its eye type and its strength, our pattern matching the profile of what we are imitating. I would seriously like to put these considerations way ahead of any preconcieved ingrained images I have of correct proportions - but how the hell do I rid myself of my existing images.

By the way this is not an attack on the usefullness or not of the new partridge hook , I am simply looking at how we view and consider such things and the possibility that when it comes to fishing flies that cosmetics are inadverently weighted more heavily than practical application.

[Otter]

As an example of this a friend of mine described a spider type pattern with some thorax dubbing on a 1640 that i showed him , as stumpy
It did not fit his prey image for a spider. When i told him that is was intended as a caddis imitation he still maintained it was stumpy.