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Fishing: How To Fish: Equipment
History of Fishhooks
Modern hook design and manufacture has come a long way since the first Stone Age bone hooks found by archeologists and dating back to more than 5,000 B.C. Today’s fishhooks come in hundreds of sizes, shapes and special designs. They’re made from carbon steel, stainless steel, or some rust-resistant alloy. They’re hardened and tempered, then plated or bronzed to meet special specifications. Some are thin steel wire for use in tying artificial flies; others are thick steel for big-game fish that prowl offshore waters.
There is no such thing as an all-purpose hook. Fishermen must carry a variety of patterns and sizes to match both tack and size of fish being hunted. Let’s start from the beginning by learning the basic nomenclature of a typical fishhook, illustrated in the accompanying drawing.
Even the various parts of a typical fishhook may vary in design to meet certain requirements. There are sliced shanks to better hold bait on the hook, forged shanks for greater strength in marine hooks, tapered eyes to reduce weight of hooks used in tying dry lies, and so on.
You can find detailed information about different hook styles and sizes in the “Complete Outdoors Encyclopedia.” To order an autographed copy of this 830-page comprehensive volume , contact Vin T. Sparano, the author, at: [email protected]
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