Hooks I use

[Dave Burr]

I've no allegiance to a single hook design or maker although I find Fang Twisters excellent for bottom fishing with boilies as one exception. But I am curious and I want to try different styles and makers (if there are actually that many makers) and when I find a good pattern I buy a few packets.

For standard fishing the Drennan range will catch you pretty much anything you want but I like a curved shank for some of my fishing, a long shank for other times and the marvellous QM1's for another. I tend to carry a wide mixture of hooks and although my carp bag has them in their packets, my barbel/other bag has them rattling around in the compartments of a little plastic box. But I always have a sharpening stone and a jewellers eye glass to check and hone the points when necessary.

Of course any hook tied incorrectly will loose fish so knots are another topic that could be discussed till Doomsday

[Nobby]

I have my hooks in little snuff sized tins, with a neodye-thingy magnet Araldited in ( to stop them rattling around) and a Swiss Army knife pair of tweezers to pick them out with.


Makes me sound quite organised, doesn't it? If only......



I do wonder if the fish might not be able to detect magnetised metal though.......

[Shaun Harrison]

I do wonder if the fish might not be able to detect magnetised metal though.......

I'm lead to believe they can. I seem to recall our own Mike Wilson wrote at length about this back in the 80's.

[Woodytia]

On the whole, I use Drennan hooks, the Carp Method ones are quite good if you need a stronger hook. Sometimes I end up using one of the hooks from my bit box that I carry in my pocket. To be honest I look at all the different brands and sub-types get confused and end using what I know.

[Nobby]

I do wonder if the fish might not be able to detect magnetised metal though.......

I'm lead to believe they can. I seem to recall our own Mike Wilson wrote at length about this back in the 80's.

Ah. Well I've got my excuse ready for another bad season then, Shaun.......

[Shaun Harrison]

I would have to dig it out but it was something to do with the exchange between the hook and the lead but thinking about it that wouldn't have been magnetism. I do seem to recall he ended up using glass weights from a Chandelier to get around the issue.

I've caught a few with hooks and leads since though but have heard similar from a few different people now but it is a subject too deep for me to understand. I do catch more barbel with plasticine moulded around my lead than a bare lead though. Always did it to try and lessen the rattling of the lead against gravel when trundling baits but possibly there was more to it? Ron Key who I often fish with often gives his carp leads a paste wrap which I never really saw the benefit of but he doers catch a lot.

Sorry - off topic.

I used hooks from Ashima for years (they produce a lot of other companies hooks too). This past year I have been using PB Products hooks for my barbel and carp (not sure who makes theirs) and Drennan's (Kamassans) for most other species.

[GarryProcter]

I do wonder if the fish might not be able to detect magnetised metal though.......

I'm lead to believe they can. I seem to recall our own Mike Wilson wrote at length about this back in the 80's.

Ah. Well I've got my excuse ready for another bad season then, Shaun.......

But Nobby, they might be attracted by your magnetic hooks (I once had a game that worked rather like that)

[Michael]

Well some academics say, Salmon navigate by using the magnetic fields, so you never know.....

ps.... I had the fishing game....

[Kingfisher2007]

As a lad I used Mustard Goldstrike hooks. Then because reading what writing anglers were using went from make to make. Still not sure. For Barbel it is the Drennan. Carp its Korda at the moment.

[Mike Wilson]

Way back in the mid 70's I noticed that my early baits left in the shallows at Savay were eaten overnight whilst those attached to my hook/line remained untouched. This posed a number of of questions.
Could the carp detect my handling whilst baiting my hook. This was pre hair [1980/81]. In those days I cut the hook off, threaded the line through the bait, which was skinned but quite soft, retied the hook and used a pre cut sliver of crust as a cushion under the bend to stop the hook pulling through the bait whilst casting.
I discussed my thought with Dick [Walker] who suggested perhaps the line made the fish suspicious. I was using 8 lbs Maxima or Sylcast. Never found the need to use anything stronger as the carp didn't get much bigger than low 30's. Dick did say he had a similar experience off the dam at Redmire.
Sometime later I watched a television programme about sharks detecting their prey by electrical impulses. I didn't consider it at the time however a while later having problems starting my car I considered my battery needed changing. Driving home I remembered that a car battery consisted of a zinc and lead plate with an electrolyte [sulphuric acid]. This set me thinking. The next day I collected a few gallons of Savay water and emptied it into one of my testing tanks. I removed the coating from the hook [Au Lion D'or 1534], lowered it into the tank with a ledger weight about 12" apart and attached a potentiometer between the two. I was very surprised to get a reading [from memory] of 0.02 volts. Testing this result I further added a small amount of salt and noticed how the reading increased rapidly. Could a rich water give a higher potential?
I reasoned that if a carp detected a small potential prior to being caught and experienced something similar when it approached another bait it may become more cautious. Could this account also for the success of the hair rig? I cannot prove any of this however, they are just my unqualified thoughts.
Insulating the hook was easy,I dunked them in cellulose dope which dried very quickly and easy to do on the bank. The leads were much more of a problem but after discovering an old chandelier I was able to make some weights from the droplets. It worked but the odd one cracked on casting out .
Working then in the glass industry I was able to make some 'weights' out of softer borosilicate glass. These worked but some still cracked when they landed on gravel. This was overcome by using a string of beads on a length of dacron attached to a short length of biro tube instead of a swivel on my link ledger. I wanted all metal removed. Interesting that many sea going vessels have a zinc sacrificial anode attached to avoid damage to the hull from the electrolytic action with the bronze props.
I started catching a lot of very good carp but this could be explained by my 'Baiting Pyramid'.
A few years later whilst giving a slide show for Kevin Nash I was approached by Cliff Fox who invited me back to his place where we applied a pvc coating on lead ledger weights. It worked a treat and now virtually all weights are sold powder coated. Pity I didn't patent the idea !!
I did try placing magnets against the tank but this had no affect on the [small] carp any more than the static build up when casting out your line. This is, of course, earthed when it hits the water. The affect of vibrating line when barbel fishing in fast water was also discounted as the vibration was lost when the line 'hit' the lead or feeder.

Sorry I've gone on a bit…...

Mike