bending hook eye

[bulb 0]

So i have these down eye hooks that are perfect for small streamers exept that i want a straight eye. So i got a pair of pliers and sorted that out. Thing is some of them break if I go too fast. thoughts/tips? Don't want to fill a box with defective hooks, but the ones that did't break feel sound.

[mikechell 0]

Hardened steel hooks. I guarantee, the ones that didn't break, are "fatigued" and ready to break. That said ... even degraded, the tensile strength of the steel hook is probably still stronger than your tippet. But if the fish gets it lodged so there's some side torque on the eye, you'll probably reel in a knot and hook eye only.

The longer the length you're bending, the more angle it appears to have. Like a "bend back" rigged hook seems to have a good amount of curve to it. But if you look at any 1/16th inch of that curve, it has very little local bend to it. On the other hand, putting all that bend at one point on the shaft, and you are degrading the metal, whether it snaps off or not.

 

I highly doubt the action of the streamer will be effected by the down turn of those eyes. I wouldn't straighten them, myself. Just my humble opinion.

[flytire 0]

Thing is some of them break if I go too fast. thoughts/tips?

 

goooooooo sloooooooow

 

 

straight eyed hooks

 

tiemco 101

 

Daiichi 1640

 

daiichi 1750

 

daiichi 1850

 

Daiichi 1110

 

tiemco 9395

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

So much depends on the steel wire used to make your hook originally and then how it was tempered after being shaped into a hook. Many super premium hooks are certainly sharper and stronger than standard hooks - but along with that comes a degree of brittle-ness (if there is such a word). The Tiemco 800s for instance was a super premium hook much regarded for it's great strength and sharpness -particularly by tarpon anglers in the eighties when it was the hook of choice for those chasing silver kings. The company made some slight change to their formula and all of a sudden that same hook was breaking on the strike or during the fight. It got so bad that lots of tarpon flies tied up on them were withdrawn from sale (and contract tyers like me, who had been using them, lost out on quite a few sales....). It was bad enough that they were withdrawn from sale -and to this day the largest available are only size two in that style...

 

Whenever I'm bending hooks I like something like a Mustad 34007 which can be re-formed easily without weakening. The fact that the original poster actually broke a few hooks when straightening that eye would be enough warning for me not to use that hook make/style for bending... Much better to look around for hooks that already meet your needs than bend them a bit and have them fail under a load. You can be darned certain that if a hook is going to fail it won't be with a tiny fish.... another of those "ask me how I know" moments for this writer....

[bulb 0]

Thanks for the input folks. The straight eye is for purely cosmetic reasons, but I don't fish with flies that don't look good to me so it's a big deal I tried heating the eye with a lighter for a bit just to soften it a little and it worked, no more breakages yet. Still, feels a little sketchy but the ones that made it really seem to hold up

[mikechell 0]

Annealing the metal so it bends easier ... also softens it so it will always bend easier. Tie on the size leader material you are going to use. Properly secure the hook and the line so you can pull until the line breaks. Then look to see if the eye has opened up. It is possible to soften the hook metal to that point, where you'll start losing fish to a gap in the eye loop.

[phg 0]

Annealing the eye, like that, is probably safe. Don't get it too hot, though, or it will become very brittle.

[mikechell 0]

If the metal starts to glow, you are in the transitional stage. Quenching quickly produces the hardened metals. Slow cooling produces annealed/tempered metals.

 

When you have metal as thin as a hook, just the air quenches it too quickly to temper or anneal.

 

Do not heat the metal enough to glow and you'll have a better chance of annealing.

[Kentuckysteve 0]

Simple solution here.

 

Just buy straight eye hooks and be done with it.

[rstaight 0]

When I was running a die shop in the forging industry we did all of our own heat treat. Annealing, know as drawing is done to remove internal stress created by the heat treat process. But in an emergency you could bring the material back to a state to be easily worked.

 

The trick is not get to close to the previous treatment temperature. Example: harden at 1200 degs, 1st draw at 1000 degs, 2nd draw at 800 degs. Now this is just an example since each type of material has its own temperatures where the molecular matrices change.

[Dave G. 0]

Simple solution here.

 

Just buy straight eye hooks and be done with it.

Yep, nuff said right there.

[Striperknight 0]

Just use them as is.

[vicrider 0]

If it makes you feel any better the old Mustad #84 straight shank and eye hook was the one we used on the north shore of MN, WI, MI, for steelhead and salmon. This was from the mid 60's to the mid 80's. The hook was straight like I said and I used to start a small propane torch on the desk and sit and take hook after hook, heat them 'til they just started to color and take them down and bend the eye up at about a 45 degree angle. We used almost all #4 or #2 size hooks and the reason for the bent up eye was so we run tipper leader through, snell it to the straight shaft, then slide a couple of colors of puffy yard underneath the loop created by the snell through the eye. We'd then trim that down down into an egg shape for drifting the runs, often adding a small rubber egg if water was dirty or fish were stubborn.

 

Myself and my steelhead crazed friends fished these hooks for years this way since Mustad didn't make an up eye version and the so called "steelhead beak hooks" we hated. Between us I would guess we hooked, landed or lost hundreds of steels over 3#s and salmon from 10# -30# and never had a hook eye break where we heated it and bent it, and in Michigan for salmon we often went up to 12-14# test leaders.

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

My early series of tarpon flies were designed to be snelled -back before fluorocarbon leaders made snelling tarpon flies no longer necessary. I'm sure that your bent hooks worked just fine - since when you're snelling a hook the eye of the hook no longer matters, except as a stopper to keep the leader from slipping under stress.... The eye just isn't under any stress if you snell a hook.

 

I'll bow out here since I know this conversation will continue...

[troutah 0]

Why are you fighting the urge to go to the fly shop? Just go. Wish I needed something from the fly shop.