With all the different styles, brands and sizes of hooks available to fishermen today understanding the differences among the features can be difficult. Fortunately, there is help!

In this article we will discuss the basic styles and features common to most hooks (both flyfishing and non-flyfishing).

Anatomy of a Hook

Every hook, freshwater or saltwater, fly or non-fly, has six parts:

1. Eye – The "loop" at the end of the fly. The eye is considered the front or forward end of a hook.
2. Shank – The length of the section that extends back from the hook eye to just before the hook begins to bend. Shanks can either be think (light) or thick (heavy) depending on the style.
3. Bend – The section of the hook that bends around.
4. Point – The "business end" of the hook. The point is the piece of the hook that actually grabs the fish. The point also contains the Barb. That’s the spine of metal pointing backwards at an angle from the point. It’s function is to keep the hook from coming out of the fish’s mouth. Many anglers who prefer to release their fish file or crush down the barb or use hooks that are barb-less.
5. Gap – The distance (size) from the point up to the shank of the hook. The gap is important to hooking fish. If the size of the gap is too small the hook may not grab on the fish properly. If the gap is too wide the fish might be able to get some leverage off the hook and wrench itself free.
6. Throat – Though lesser referred to in saltwater fishing, this is the distance (length or size) from the bend the point extends back to the eye of the hook. As with the gap size, the throat length can help or hinder hooking the fish.

Styles of Points

As the illustration shows there are several different styles of hook points. Each style has some advantage for hooking and holding the fish. Thin, narrow points tend to penetrate better while points with larger barbs are good for holding bigger fish. For saltwater fly fishing most fly fishers use a narrow style that penetrates the tough jaws of saltwater game fish.

Many fly fishers also like the reversed and kirbed style of offset point under special conditions. This can help hook the fish especially when used with large flies or flies with foam bodies such a poppers and sliders.

"What are Circle Hooks? Why are they so popular?"

A circle hook is typically a curved shanked hook with a very extenuated curved in point. In concept, when a fish strikes the curved in point won’t grab the fish deep in it’s mouth or down in it’s gut. Rather, the curved point will slide along the inside of mouth until it reaches the corner of the jaw where the curved in style grabs the corner of the mouth. Thus, the fish is less injured by being hooking in the corner of the jaw rather than down in the gut. Therefore, when fishing circle hooks the technique to simply apply pressure to the fish when it strikes rather than pulling back hard to "set the hook". While it’s not a certainty the hook will work this way all the time it is much more certain to behave this way than a more straight pointed hook.

Circle hooks have been around for several years and have grown rapidly in popularity as anglers become more aware of quickly releasing fish unharmed.

Styles of Eyes

As you can see there are several different styles of eyes available on hooks. However, from the stand point of saltwater fly fishing the most commonly available and used style is the ringed eye. It’s strong and secure while not interfering with the action of the fly.

Anglers casting lures will sometimes use the open eye hook to add or replace a hook on their lure. After the hook is looped through the connection (eye ring or split ring) on the lure a pair of pliers is used to close the open eye.

Swivel style hooks tend to be very large, heavy and expensive. They are commonly used when baitfishing for large game fish.

Styles of Eye Alignments

As shown hook eyes can be made to alignment (point) in different directions. For saltwater flyfishing the straight eye alignment is the most common. The turned up and turned down style is most commonly used for bait fishing as it helps to rig the hook with a leader.

NOTE: While you may be able to bend a hook eye to re-align it in general this is not a good practice. If the hook doesn’t actually break when being bent it will almost certainly be weakened at the point of the bending. If you need a hook with a particular eye alignment it is far better to simply purchase hooks pre-made with the style you need.

Forged, Tinned and Stainless Steel Hooks

Forged hooks are most commonly used for bait fishing. Most saltwater fly hooks used are stainless steel. They hold up well in the marine environment and are typically thinner than forged hooks thus making for a better fly tying platform.

Tinned hooks like similar to stainless steel hooks (both have a shiney finish) but tinned hooks, while good, are not as resistant to corrosion as stainless steel hooks.

In Conclusion…

Selecting the proper hook for the fish you are targeting and the style of fishing you plan undertake is essential for success. Scaling the size, style and weight of the hook can make the different between taking fish, especially big fish, or not.

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