Getting a bad batch of hooks can turn a guy off in a hurry. One of the first batches of Dai Riki hooks I bought all would straighten out on me after a couple fish so I quit buying any Dai Riki hooks. I know guys that swear by them, so I don't know if I got a bad batch or what. But I didn't stick around to find out.

However even hook makers I like can make a model I don't. I like Daiichi hooks and tie almost exclusively with them, but I have not had good luck with their 1100 series wide gape dry fly hooks. It seems to me the wire is too fine and after catching just a couple of fish they have a tendency to start to straighten out.

One thing I can not stand in a hook and will not tolerate, is inconsistencies. There is one brand of cheap hooks out there that I won't mention, that I will never buy again. The hooks were strong, but so inconsistent it wasn't funny. You couldn't tell by just looking at them out of the package so much, but you sit down and tie a few dozen and you noticed one seemed to have just a tad longer shank than the other, or the bend was slightly different, or the angle of eye was not the same. It was frustrating to tie with them, and to me those hooks were the very definition of "Crappy Hooks."