SIMPLIFIED MY HOOKS
It is easy to see that a hook junkie lives in this house. There are several sizes of a lot of different types of hooks in the places where hooks are kept.
During one of the rain storms this summer, when it was not wisdom to be waving a stick around in the air, I did a hook area cleaning and organizing.
I had several boxes of duplicate hooks, explained by ordering in quantity most of the time. I condensed those. Most hook boxes with hold three to four times the number of hooks that come in them.
I then put dry fly, wet fly, streamer, scud and other hooks in separate containers. This way I could find them easier. I also organized the hooks in each container by size. Not sure how long that will last.
In doing this a few boxes showed up that the barbs had not been smashed. I Took care of that before I worked on any more sorting. I try to do this whenever hooks come in so I can set down and tie when the hook box is open.
At this point curiosity set in and some comparisons started happening.
I took a few boxes of dry fly hooks and a few boxes of wet fly hooks and compared them. There were several where it was hard to tell the difference. The diameter of the hook might be a little smaller on the dry fly hooks, but very much.
Why was I buying two different hooks that looked very similar? If I went to dry fly hooks then I could tie either with that hook. Sizing is a little different, but I look at the hook and don’t worry about an exact size that much. I tend to have flies tied in three sizes in most cases.
I do tie a few patterns that work better on a Sproat or Limerick style hook. So it is not a full abandonment to dry fly hooks, but for most of my own flies, they are on dry fly hooks. I have not lost any more fish on these than on any other flies.
Five of the swaps I have been in I have received some sort of wet fly or nymph tied on dry fly hooks. This seems to make it easier for me.
There are still some wet and nymph hooks in my supplies. I will continue to use these up. The next time I ordering hooks I will be ordering a dry fly hooks.
There are a few hooks out right now that are advertised as a dry fly / light nymph hook. Those will be the styles that will receive serious consideration. Even doing this it will only decrease my hook selections by about 1/3.
I tie many of my own patterns on Aberdeen hooks. Found a great sale on hooks one time in a hardware store while on vacation. I saw the going out of business sign while we were gassing up and went to see what they might have. It was the last day of the sale and I got a great deal on a huge cache of hooks.
Not sure that this will work for everyone, but it makes sense in my head, dangerous as that may be.
Hope you can get out on the water.
Rick