The Eyes Have It

The fishing hook is one of humankind’s greatest inventions. Forbes Magazine listed it as one of the top twenty tools of all time. And it has had an amazing journey to where it is today.

It is postulated that hooks for fishing were at first made of wood or thorns and used by Cro-Magnon man 30-40,000 years ago. As these materials did not survive this cannot be confirmed. The earliest archeological find of hooks dates 9,000 years ago in what is now Palestine. These hooks were made of bone.

Okay fast forward to the 17^th century. Hooks are made of metal; some have barbs and are commercially available. What they don’t have is an eye. Originally flies were tied with a piece of leader (made of horse hair or animal sinew). Later a loop of gut was part of the tying process (and still is a part of tying traditional salmon flies). The loop would wear out making the fly useless. It wasn’t till the 1830’s that hook makers started putting eyes on hooks but the idea didn’t really catch on with fly rodders until later in the century when down eye hooks took off among the burgeoning dry fly enthusiasts.

Now we come to the core of the matter. My fly fishing life before moving to Manitoba consisted of tossing flies in the rivers and streams of central and southern Ontario. While rolling a stonefly pattern through a tempting pool I never gave a thought to which side of the fly was up or down. It was supposed to represent a nymph helplessly tumbling through the water ready to be eaten.

But here in Manitoba, whatever the target species, we are, for the most part working in still water and involved in active retrieves. In these situations the whole concept of flies riding hook point up, flipping over etc becomes an issue. I have struggled with solving the riddle of flies that flip over (hook point up). I have tied barbell, bead chain and glass eyes on the underside. I have put a keel of weight under the shank. I have tied carapaces and wing cases with foam only to have these flies still ride upside down in the water. But wait, I don’t have this problem with pike flies tied on salt water hooks nor on patterns tied on salmon iron!

From this I theorize that the cause of flies riding hook point up stems, not from fly construction but from hook design. Imagine you had a giant hook in your back yard that you had to move. If you tied a rope to the eye and lifted vertically it would flip all the way over. This is what happens when you fish, the fly is below you and with every line strip you are pulling the fly vertically flipping the flies with a down eye. I think you get the idea.

You may have some down eyed flies that don’t ride hook up (I know I do) but I think there is something in those patterns (like a large rudder like wing) that slow or prevent this flipping over.

Now that we might have found the problem here are some fixes. First off, your down eye hooks are still great for dry flies, deer hair or foam poppers and most patterns tied for moving water. For streamers, still water and active retrieve applications you could tie only patterns, like Flymphs or Wooly Buggers, that are ‘in the round’ but hook points that ride up also hook fish in the upper jaw near vital organs and may not be the best choice in catch and release situations. You could start tying your eye down flies to your leader with a reverse or upside down snell knot (basically making sure the leader enters the eye from the front or top). This would have the leader exiting the eye parallel to the shank but you would need to leave room on the hook shank at the tying bench, but it is a very strong knot. Another idea is to put a half hitch on behind the eye with your leader after you have tied your leader to the fly. This will pull the fly to one side or another, depending on whether you do a left or right hitch, but it will definitely have the leader pull the fly from the shank. A fourth solution is to gradually move over to straight and/or up eyed hooks. The problem here is that these types of eyes are not common in standard hooks. So what I have done is use salmon and salt water hooks, as straight and up eyes are pretty common in these hooks. They are stronger and come in all but the smallest sizes. Sure they are pricier but I feel it is worth it. As well some non fly tying type hooks have straight eyes but will also have offset hooks.

On a final note, one other advantage to straight or up eyed hooks is they have a larger gape for better hook set. So take a look at how your patterns ride in the water and see if these ideas can benefit you.