Anyone use the Umpqua U series hooks? Hows the quality? Seems like a pretty low price for a pack of hooks , maybe to low.
they are made in korea, as are several other brands, i have not used them personally.
If the quality’s as good as comparably priced Dai Riki (MFC hooks, too), I’d at least give them a look, although I have absolutely no issues with Dai Riki hooks.
To me, that seems to be the going rate I’d pay for hooks. I’ve used Tiemco and Daiichi and, for my fishing needs, can’t find any difference in quality to justify the extra expense.
Regards,
Scott
I agree totally with Scott… These are excellent hooks for the any price. 
Thanks for the feed back guys. I found some fifty packs for three bucks a pack. I guess I’ll give them a try.
A review with pics:
http://www.coloradofisherman.com/forum/index.php?topic=67086.0
I have recently been trying out the Eagle Claw hooks… don’t overlook them! I have been very happy so far!
Chewydog , WOW! Cheap for a reason I guess. Oh well , I already ordered two packs of them. If they are anything like those I’ll just chalk it up as a six dollar lesson. Thanks
If you want to save money on hooks:
Both sell imported hooks of decent quality.
Hagens also has a large selection of Mustad hooks (I use a lot of 3366s for bass bugs and clousers. They are around $25/1000). Hagen’s ‘imported’ hooks are a part of the ‘Larva Lace’ brand, which they own now. They also have some decent tying supplies.
Togens sells in 500s and 1000s, but will allow you to assort the selection by hundreds. Last time I checked, it was around $70/1000.
I’ve had really good luck with these hooks. There is the occasional anomaly, but at a price point that is much less than ten cents a hook, I’ll put up with some of that.
Fish hooks aren’t that hard.
Buddy
Thanks for the tip Buddy.
I got the hooks in and looked them over very close. Not a bad one in the bunch that I can find. Eyes are nice , shanks are very straight , no problems at all that I can find. I guess I had better luck than the guy in the posted review above. I would really recommend them from what I have seen so far.
Texfly,
Not everything you read in a ‘review’ is what it seems.
Those ‘scud’ hooks he was complaining about come with that ‘bend’ in them intentionally. I Don’t know why they come with that odd curve, but I have some and they work just fine. (The same manufacturer also makes a ‘straight’ hook with that profile. Different marketers call them different things, I’ve seen ‘scud’, ‘emerger’, and ‘egg’ nomenclature for them, but it comes ‘both’ ways). I’m sure that if he had called the seller, they would have described the hook to him if he had difficulty understanding the printed description.
If you dig a bit, you can find things out, like the affiliation of someone writing a review with a fly shop that sells only Tiemco hooks. Or a web site that is run by fly shop owners who have a vested interest in selling high dollar hooks.
I was contacted over fifteen years ago by a manufacturing company in China that was interested in making fly tying hooks. They were going to invest in the machines, but were concerned about finding a market. I really couldn’t help them much, and I have no clue why they asked for my input, but I did tell them to look at Tiemco, Mustad, and Daiichi and select the most common styles to begin with. Apparently this is what they chose to do.
I’m always surprised when I come across folks who don’t understand how the sales and marketing of these imported hooks work. There are only a couple of manufacturers of fly tying hooks involved in this. The machinery is expensive, but once purchased turns out hooks in astounding quantities. It takes longer to sort/package the hooks than it does to make them (and costs more too).
In order to sell these hooks, rather than market the hooks themselves (which is what Tiemco and Mustad do), the manufactuer chose to sell to anyone who wanted to buy in quantity and then brand/package/market the hooks as they wished. This lets the manufacturer concentrate on making the hooks and saves them the packaging and retail marketing costs (which is a LARGE part of what you pay for with name brand hooks). This system is where almost all of the ‘house’ brand hooks you see for sale out there come from.
What also comes from this is a bit of confusion over nomenclature. Each retailer/distributor/small wholesaler can assign whatever descritpion or numbering system to the hooks that they want. A few have just copied others, primarily Tiemcos’s, numbering system. Others use what the maker assigns. Still others make up their own. When they copy Tiemco’s system, many purchasers get the erroneous idea that these are somehow ‘bootleg’ or ‘second quality’ Tiemco hooks. It’s arguable that the retailer is doing this intentionally, but it’s difficult to prove. But to be clear, the MANUFACTURER uses a different numbering system to identify these hooks and doesn’t market them intentionally as Tiemco hooks or hooks from any other brand.
As far as the ‘quality’ goes, that’s pretty subjective. I don’t use Tiemco hooks because I dislike the way they temper their wire. I had enough failures to enduce me to stop using them. In my experience, Tiemco hooks are inferior to these ‘imported bulk hooks’. I stopped using Gamakatsu hooks for the same reason many years ago before I started tying flies.
By far my personal favorite hooks were the traditional Mustad hooks. I still buy what’s available (3366s and jig hooks primarily) and I still have a few of the ‘old ones’ left over. I tie and give away a several hundreds of flies every summer. I lose a few hundred more to the lake bottom and other hazrads. I buy and use thousands of these ‘bulk’ imprted hooks in several styles from a few different sources. I’ve caught thousands of fish on them, and if you add in the efforts of those that I’ve given flies to, many more thousands of fish have been caught on them.
Never lost a fish due to hook failure.
Remember, it’s just a fish hook. They have been making them for a couple hundred years. Just how ‘good’ does a fish hook have to be?
Buddy
Thanks for the education Buddy , very interesting.