Hook Question

i plan on tieing up some steelhead patterns, will i be fine with normal tiemco hooks or do i need to buy some special hook?

thanks deon.

Depends on the flies, style of fishing, and the size of the fish you are likely to catch. I wouldn’t recommend using anything lighter than a 2XH hook. The classic swinging patterns (e.g. Boss, Comet, etc.) are tied on an looped up eye extra heavy wire hook, but that is mostly a bow to tradition, rather than the need for that heavy a hook (although on some rivers, you do need that much iron). I personally like to upsize and use short shanked hooks for steelhead so I have a small fly with a big gape and a bit of an edge on wire gauge. On my waters, the fish don’t get that large (10# would be a big fish), so depending on where you are fishing, and the type of flies you are tying, you may want to experiment a bit. I really like the TMC2488H, TMC2457, or TMC2499BLSP for steelhead nymphs. You can of course land fish to 10# on a TMC3769, TMC3761, or TMC5262, but I just don’t have enough experience with larger fish to say if those are adequate.

Good luck.