What do y’all think? Do you think that steelhead hook would work when tying flies like this one?
Might be a bit short in length for that fly but a bass would probably gobble it up to the hook. Good-looking fly!
Lotech,
That hook would work just fine.
Bass are ‘engulf feeders’. When they take their prey, they suck it into their rather large oral cavity by flaring their gills. This brings in both the prey and a large volume of water. The bass then kills the prey by crushing it (you can feel the crushing plates inside their mouth). This also expells all that water out the gill openings. Once the prey is killed, they can swallow it at their leisure…and sometimes the bass will suck in and kill several prey before being able to swallow any of them.
Bass also always hit their prey at the head.
So, when building bass flies, you want to make sure you have a sharp hook that is oriented to the head end of the fly…and, since the bass will take in all of the fly at once, you want a hook that is large enough to get around the materials in the fly if they become balled up (this is why so many mainstream bass anglers use such large hooks-hard to get the hook to bite around all that balled up soft plastic and stuff).
Buddy
P.s; those old style turned up eye salmon hooks make excellent hooks for bass flies too. BS.
I agree with what has been said thus far. I like a fairly short, wider gap hook on bait fish flies like that…stout hooks though.
kelkay,
Good advise and great looking flies.
Thanks,
Don’t know what brand or size that hook is but it looks quite a bit like a Mustad 3366. One old gentleman I talked to several years ago told me the 3366 was his preferred bass fly hook. Plus it is relatively inexpensive.
Tim
I don’t remember if it’s a Mustad or not. But, I bought it for Tiger Muskies and it’s one tough “Siwash” hook. I’ll bet it would lift 100 pounds of dead weight out of the water. The line, leader or tippet would definitely fail first.
I’ve used the siwash hooks for baitfish patterns. As already pointed out, I just think the shank is too short. My favorite hooks for bass baitfish patterns are the light wire worm hooks from Eagle Claw or Gamakatsu. Regular shank, wide gap, needle sharp. Gives a bit more shank to work with in building the body.
LoTech:
One suggestion I would make is try tying using clear mono thread. Also, I see you’re using a Danvise. If you’re going to be tying a lot of large baitfish patterns, the configuration can be changed. The fly below is a pike fly tied on a Partridge pike hook. It’s about 8 inches long.
I use a similar hook, just a little heavier… Its a mustad C52S BLN Stinger/Deerhair Standard 2X long… I like the way the hooks point is aimed towards the eye…
another hook I use for baitfish besides the one Ivan mentioned was the SC15 hook…I like both styles of hook