Hook Brand

[m_grieb 0]

i tie commercially and my boss requires that i tie on daichi so i dont really have experience with many other hooks

[Cappgun 0]

I personally prefer Daiichi, then TMC. I had some Mustad hooks I bought a couple of years ago that were not impressive. Lack of quality control on eyes, even had some missing eyes all together.

[CTobias 0]

I buy my trout fly hooks in bulk from England. Steelhead and salmon flies I will use AJ's by Daichi

[Piker20 0]

I buy my trout fly hooks in bulk from England. Steelhead and salmon flies I will use AJ's by Daichi

Interested to see you buy from UK. Is that wholesale or have you found someone cheaper than Allen fly fishing in the states?

[bkatz1 0]

Gamakatsu hooks are great for corrosion resistance as far as salt flies go, sharp as hell too. Otherwise for fresh water whatever is on sale... I have a tendency to scatter my flies up in the trees anyways! dont wanna waist $$$ on the bass flies, but I will def. drop the dough when I try and tie toads and EP patterns for snook and tarpon.

[Lightline 0]

Orvis big-eye for trout flies. Varivas and Owner Aki for salt water.

[Machocheese 0]

Mostly mustad signature for me. They seem a good quality hook for a little less money than the other name brands. I do like the Daiichi big eye hooks for real small dries. Otherwise I will buy most any brand if its a good deal. The only hooks I shy away from are the real bright gold ones that a lot of big retailers sell as their house brand. The metal seems softer to me and I just don't like the color.

[Roofish 0]

There have been good advancements in hook technology, nobody can deny it. I think the small niche-market for current fly hooks has exploded beyond what it should be. I guess we're still not to the pinnacle of gullibility the rubber worm bass fishermen have reached.... I saw a pack of "trokar" worm hooks which were $10 for a 5 pack! But oh boy, they have a "surgical 3 sided cutting edge" point style--- just like Lefty Kreh and Mark Sosin taught us to do to our hooks thirty years ago!!!

 

I grew up tying on Mustad, what we now call "Classic" Mustad. They were and still are perfectly good fly hooks. On the ones which needed it, 5 or 6 swipes with a diamond hone produced a sticky-sharp point. I don't recall having one of them break, and I still use them a lot. Their Signature hooks seem very high quality to me, and I've used a ton of them too. They are more expensive than they should be, but still not as expensive as most others. I'm certainly using "modern" expensive hooks from every maker, except perhaps Partridge, and don't deny they look good and are sharp. I also know without any doubt I don't catch more fish with the new-style hooks than I did with the old. I probably have enough hooks stashed away that I could tie the rest of my life without buying another one, but sometimes I see a certain hook or size that I think I need, when I really don't, so I figure I'll buy quite a few more hooks before I'm done.

 

At some point, I think late 90's or early 00's, we (fly fishermen) as a whole let ourselves get totally fleeced into believing we NEED to use jewelry store boutique brand (and priced) hooks to catch fish, and what we used to know were great hooks all of a sudden were not good enough any more. It's a load of crap. Today fly fishermen somehow believe that a hook point NEEDS to be so sharp out of the package it would pierce through the femur of a cow with the pressure of a 7x tippet, and should never become dull or bent-- if it's not chemically-lazer sharpened, it's no good. How many folks buy a knife with the expectation they will never need to examine the edge or sharpen it?

 

I think this was driven more by the high-dollar magazine cover wanna-be fly FISHERMEN more than by real world fly tiers; the big influx of folks who just knew that the more something costs, the "better" it is... Add to that sponsored guides pushing brand-names on their sports, sports who wanna-be just like the "professionals".

Very well said! Even though I've only been fly fishing & tying for a few yrs I believe this happens in alot of things in life

 

Alot of you have mentioned buying in bulk, is there a site you could recommend that sells inexpensive bulk?

[streamcaddis 0]

I use mostly Tiemco or Daiichi for all of my flies.

[Wavey1988 0]

Mustads for my sea tying.

Mostly Kamasan for my fresh water tying

 

and some other random brands as and when

[TheBigHenderson 0]

Like many, i normally just use Mustads or Tiemco hooks...but as of recently I've started using Orvis hooks and they are very nice....I haven't had a bad experience with them yet.

[Flyunder 0]

I use Daiichi, I get them at a great price from a guy in NY. I have not gotten a bad one in over 17 years, I know nothing is perfect so perhaps I've been lucky? I like the micro barbs on them because they're easy to crush down. They seem to keep a point well after bumping on the bottom too.So far they've got all the styles I've needed. I would not hesitate to use another brand if needed.

[Machocheese 0]

Like many, i normally just use Mustads or Tiemco hooks...but as of recently I've started using Orvis hooks and they are very nice....I haven't had a bad experience with them yet.

I'm fairly sure that the Orvis hooks are made by Daiichi. At least the "big eye" ones. I have several packs of these from Daiichi that say, "made in cooperation with the Orvis Corp." Those over sized eyes are hard to beat on the real small stuff.

[TheBigHenderson 0]

Like many, i normally just use Mustads or Tiemco hooks...but as of recently I've started using Orvis hooks and they are very nice....I haven't had a bad experience with them yet.

I'm fairly sure that the Orvis hooks are made by Daiichi. At least the "big eye" ones. I have several packs of these from Daiichi that say, "made in cooperation with the Orvis Corp." Those over sized eyes are hard to beat on the real small stuff.

Oh cool....I wouldn't have expected that! But yeah they're great.

[bowmike 0]

I am a fan of Allen Hooks