Hanak and Tiemco have become my go-to brands for nymph hooks, Gamakatsu for dries. I've had strength issues with Firehole hooks, brittleness/breaking of the larger hooks, and bending out of smaller hooks, not to mention their jig hooks are labeled at least a size too small in my opinion (a 16 of theirs is closer to a 14 or even 12 of other brands). Its been a few years since I've bought any Firehole, hopefully their quality has improved.
Great step in the right direction, but if Brad wouldn’t just quit if asked, I would love to see the same measurements done for hook gap. For my own personal use, I have adopted the TMC 100 as my ’standard’ hook for gap measurements. Whenever I buy a new hook, I compare the hook to the TMC standard hook gap, and relabel the new hook accordingly.
Thanks for the eye opening video. I went through and noted the measurements on the flies that you have SKUs and for those hooks you don't have on your website, I ordered a digital caliper to make my own measurements! Thanks for making me a more knowledgeable fly tier.
This is interesting. The differences in hooks is confusing. I agree a comparison of hook gap would also be good. I always thought a 1XL long hooks was one size longer so #12 gap with a #10 shank, but I could be mistaken.
Nice video. I think you have always done a great job at pointing out the relative brand/size differences in most of your tying videos and your website does an excellent job of elucidating further. It really helps. Thank you. There are reasons that I always look to you guys first when buying tying supplies, and that is just one of them. The add notes you put on so many of your products don’t go unnoticed.
Rustad. 🤣 I started with those too, this made me laugh. Nice video, and great idea with the hook sizes. I do find it a little frustrating when ordering new hooks and not knowing what your going to end up with.
This is awesome news! With those sizes added, I'll be happy to branch out to other brands. I was going to try out some other hook brands last year but opted out of it after hearing that hook sizes varied so much between different brands. I ended up scouring the different online fly shops to find Hanak hooks because that's just what I've been using. Not a fun experience since Hanak seems to be on short supply everywhere.
Great info. BUT... While hook length is super important for flies, the metric for hook size for comparison purposes should be gap size point to shank as described in another comment, or I think better is the average diameter of the hook bend, using something like a a TMC100 as a baseline (where the bend looks circular, whereas some nymph hooks look like more of a spiral.
I was just looking at my collection of Hanak jig hooks and noticed the different model numbers and how on one model a size 10 was the same size as a size 6. Which got me thinking… W.T.H, why in the same company and same general type are the jig hooks different lengths. I know there are different factors that determine this, wire size, angle of bend, hook gap, etc. But I thought while buying them since I am new to the tying world that length would be uniform for size and style. So, thanks for doing the work to make hook buying easier for me.! I’m coming here for all hook buying needs.
Hello Devon. The only thing this video did was to point out that there are differences. So... what is the "standard" for hook sizing? Is there are chart that shows me how big a size 16 hook should be? Is there a cross reference for the various manufacturer's hooks to standardize them? Thanks.
There is no real standard right now. Things used to be a lot close back in the day when the world revolved around dry fly hackle length as the standard, but with all the modern hooks shapes and sizes it has become a Wild West of sizing unfortunately. The two hooks in the video thumbnail are from the same brand, so you can see how absent a standard is even at a single manufacturer. Our goal with providing lengths is not to develop a standard, simply to allow someone to measure a hook they currently have and see how a prospective purchase matches up.
Appreciate the information. I will say that I personally stick to the same hook "brand or company" where I purchased my hooks from. Just to create consistency. I didn't expect the broad range of hook size for each which is very much appalling!
This is so needed! It's be great to keep moving this forward and offer the measurement of the gape as well. It's her interesting to see hook siding done like men's pants... Two sets of numbers (gape size) (length)
Hopefully this will get the ball rolling with hook manufacturers to start collaborating together to get hook sizes all the same between all the manufacturers.
I threw in the towel on this problem long ago and I just started keeping my hooks separated and organized by "type" or "style" (i.e. jig, wet fly, dry fly, streamer, emerger, etc.) and I just completely quit keeping track of and bothering to label specific hook "sizes" with the usual number indicator (#12 vs #16, etc.). Instead when I need a hook I just eye up the sizes I have in a particular "style" (usually from a wide variety of manufacturers) and I pick the hook I want for the job. The only downside of course is that I have no idea how to reorder the same "size" that I want when I run out - hey, I didn't say I'd worked all the bugs out. : )
More of a historical question here. Would anyone happen to know? What was the basis of our hook sizing system? I began tying in the late 1960s and as I recall Mustad was about the only game in town. I’ve always suspected that it was their proprietary sizing system and newcomers simply jumped on board. As years have passed, obviously many liberties have been taken. Hook gap would be another interesting data point, but I realize that asking your manager for two measurements per hook could have been a bridge too far. Be sure to let your crew know how much this project is appreciated. Thanks
I think gap is the basis for designating a hook's size, so it makes no sense, to me at least, to be taking only length into account. No meaningful comparison is possible unless you know both the gap width as measured against an accepted standard and the shank length. You also need some knowledge of how both gap size and overall length affect the hook's ability to penetrate and to hold (they're not the same) in order to choose hooks wisely. Then, shape and wire thickness come into play as well. The problem is that there's no standard for sizing and there probably never will be.
@@gregbelcamino7239 "standard" dry fly hook (Mustad 94840) used to be the standard-- it all made perfect sense from there. See my other comment. I'm surprised this knowledge is already lost.
Much appreciated and a long overdue video! Would be great to have an international standard for competition fishing that could carry over and be accepted. Thanks from NZ.
Hook sizes can be so frustrating! Thanks for your efforts to help us understand them. Years ago I published an article in American Angler called "Size Matters" that talked about this very issue, and how it complicated matching the hatch. To help anglers better choose the "right size" fly, I made the Bugometer---a plastic credit-card ruler that you can use on the water to measure the size of a bug and and your fly. There is also a "benchside" version which includes a table of standard hook size lengths to help the angler when tying so if a bug book describes the length of the adult Green Drake as 12mm you can choose the appropriately sized hook. Check out the Bugometer at Dry Fly Innovations!
I got some Fulling Mill FM50 65 czech nymph hooks in size 20 standard length the other day. It's crazy, they're bigger than all of my other similar style size 18 2x length hooks 🤔 very annoying. We're about the same age, just turned 40. Learned to tie when i was about 10.
... Okay they had the hooks I'm complaining about. Says the fm5065 #20 are 7.5mm. I'm seeing many companies with that as their size 18 scud hooks so makes sense
but the hook GAP is more important ... and it used to be standardized. When you said "nobody really understands" about 1xl, 2xl, etc hook LENGTHS, that's not accurate. The gap size used to be more or less standard, and a standard hook reference in the fly world was a "regular" dry fly hook like a Mustad 94840. It was standard gap, standard length, and standard wire gauge. Everyone knew what it looked like. So for instance a size 12, 2x-long had a shank length two sizes larger than standard, in other words a size 12 gap, with a shank length equal to a size 8 "standard" hook... if it was "1x heavy" wire, then it had the same gauge wire as a size 10 would have. It all used to make perfect sense. The "size" number of the hook referred to the gap. Once people started ignoring standard gap sizes, it all went to shite. So a size 14 "wide gap" hook isn't a size 14 at all, it has the gap of a 12 or even 10. Shank length is secondary.
It used to be standardized, but mainly because dry fly hooks set the standard, and so gape size was very correlated to hackle size. Hooks were mostly the same shape, just with small variations in the bend shape for the most part. Early nymph hooks were just heavy wire versions of the same shapes. With the creation of the many modern hook shapes now and modern nymphing tactics and ties, the understanding of the frame of reference has been lost. If you have an extra wide gape jig hook with a shank length that will give you a "size 18" profile in the final fly, then it's confusing to call it a size 14 hook based on the gape, especially to someone without a background in traditional dry flies. If you started out tying on modern hooks, then the term 14 doesn't produce the same mental image as a frame of reference to you like it might if you started tying back in the day when there were only a couple manufacturers making similar sized traditional shapes. While perhaps a ratio of hook gape to shank length would be useful in creating a true centralized standard someday, we are not that centralized authority and creating a new standardized sizing protocol was not our intent here. We are just trying to give folks the ability to compare a measurement of a hook they own to the measurement of a hook they are considering so they know if the flies they tie on the two different hooks will have the same size profile or not. Additionally, the discussion of hook gape as a useful measurement is only useful if the manufacturers are adhering to it as a standard, which isn't happening, even between different models in the same brand. The two hooks in the thumbnail are both 16s from the same brand. We have no control over the manufacturers, so again, we are simply trying to provide some level of reference for folks to help them deal with the convoluted hook size world as it is, not as it should be in an idealized form that doesn't exist.
Great work. It was my understanding too that the gape was the original measurement for hook size. It really went off the rails when “wide gape” hooks were introduced. That made no sense in the original scheme of things based on gape giving size. I have used a large variety of hook brands and in order to order online i have occasionally had to overlay hook profiles in powerpoint to guess what hook gape i was getting for a particular hook size. There were some noteworthy outliers even before stinger and wide gape models. For example, I just bought old bulk boxes of eagle claw D057F nymph hooks in size 6 and 8 and they look like totally diff hook models
Hey talking tall panda thanks for this video. I like the pinched barb ads a little more holding. I would like to see them bring back old style with a small kink like a u shape in the barb location on baroness hooks with a kicked point and curved in
What is the difference between the Hanak 400 BL and the Hanak 450 BL? Visually i can see the differences but which is the better hook to tie euro nymphs on?
this would be an excellent follow-up video, to talk about the different shapes and "styles" of hooks and what the pros/cons of using them for different fly designs would be.
Thanks for the video Devin. I love how easy your online store is to navigate and the information given about each item. Quick question, do you normally tie inverting tungsten beads on a straight shank hook or do they work well on jig hooks too?
Awesome. Now if you could get the fly fishing industry to develop and adhere to a standard akin to line size. You might be one of the few to have the clout in the industry to make this happen.
There are so many hooks that is tough to build a reference chart for them all. We do have measurements in a chart for each hook in their product description on our site. If you note the measurements, it is easy to compare them between specific hooks you are interested in.
The hooks size thing has completely gone out of control. There should be some official standard that says what the dimensions are on a hook gap to what hook size it is. It’s a shame. Every hook manufacturer can do whatever they want to do. Also like things like a size 14 2XW why can’t we just call that a size 12? 30 years ago and I never had these problems.
Well, there's no one TO set a standard for this. You have hooks being made, designed, and distributed all over the work, and so far hook sizes haven't come up at the UN council... :)
I guess I’m not sure what it is you need then. If listed hook lengths of all the different models on our site doesn’t help than I don’t know what it is that will.
Hanak and Tiemco have become my go-to brands for nymph hooks, Gamakatsu for dries. I've had strength issues with Firehole hooks, brittleness/breaking of the larger hooks, and bending out of smaller hooks, not to mention their jig hooks are labeled at least a size too small in my opinion (a 16 of theirs is closer to a 14 or even 12 of other brands). Its been a few years since I've bought any Firehole, hopefully their quality has improved.
Great step in the right direction, but if Brad wouldn’t just quit if asked, I would love to see the same measurements done for hook gap. For my own personal use, I have adopted the TMC 100 as my ’standard’ hook for gap measurements. Whenever I buy a new hook, I compare the hook to the TMC standard hook gap, and relabel the new hook accordingly.
Huuuge step in the right direction!! Way to go TFF team 🙌🏼😊
Thank you so much
Have I missed something? Is not hook size related to the gape? Do you have that comparison?
Wow what an idea. Thanks to your warehouse manager. I know that was a lot of work but well worth it. Wonderful
Thanks for sharing didn’t know that there was a wide range of hook sizes makes you think twice before adding too your cart great video Devin
Thanks for the eye opening video. I went through and noted the measurements on the flies that you have SKUs and for those hooks you don't have on your website, I ordered a digital caliper to make my own measurements! Thanks for making me a more knowledgeable fly tier.
This is interesting. The differences in hooks is confusing. I agree a comparison of hook gap would also be good. I always thought a 1XL long hooks was one size longer so #12 gap with a #10 shank, but I could be mistaken.
Did I just see standard deviations in that hook length comparison table? You big ol' nerd! I love it!
devin is a STEM major, and he's a euro nympher, so the math adds up
Nice video. I think you have always done a great job at pointing out the relative brand/size differences in most of your tying videos and your website does an excellent job of elucidating further. It really helps. Thank you. There are reasons that I always look to you guys first when buying tying supplies, and that is just one of them. The add notes you put on so many of your products don’t go unnoticed.
Thanks Kurt!
I haven’t been tying long maybe 6 yrs and you are so right about the hook size. They are all over the place in size. Very frustrating
Rustad. 🤣 I started with those too, this made me laugh. Nice video, and great idea with the hook sizes. I do find it a little frustrating when ordering new hooks and not knowing what your going to end up with.
I was gonna say this is my favorite part of buying hooks from TFF. The MM measurements actually helped me decide on a 16 303 hook over the 18
Glad it helped.
This is awesome news! With those sizes added, I'll be happy to branch out to other brands. I was going to try out some other hook brands last year but opted out of it after hearing that hook sizes varied so much between different brands. I ended up scouring the different online fly shops to find Hanak hooks because that's just what I've been using. Not a fun experience since Hanak seems to be on short supply everywhere.
Absolute awesome to be able to look at Tactical Fly Fisher hooks and see these measurements, I really appreciate this!!!! Thanks!!
Theres a fly hook anarchy out there. Thanks for the effort!
I hope you gave Brad a raise 😀😀
Thanks for the video.
great to see you addressing the hook size confusion
This has been the bane of my fly tying existence! Thanks Devon...
Happy to help
Great info. BUT... While hook length is super important for flies, the metric for hook size for comparison purposes should be gap size point to shank as described in another comment, or I think better is the average diameter of the hook bend, using something like a a TMC100 as a baseline (where the bend looks circular, whereas some nymph hooks look like more of a spiral.
Brilliant!!! Very well-done. You're setting a standard........👏👏🙂🙂
I was just looking at my collection of Hanak jig hooks and noticed the different model numbers and how on one model a size 10 was the same size as a size 6. Which got me thinking… W.T.H, why in the same company and same general type are the jig hooks different lengths. I know there are different factors that determine this, wire size, angle of bend, hook gap, etc. But I thought while buying them since I am new to the tying world that length would be uniform for size and style. So, thanks for doing the work to make hook buying easier for me.! I’m coming here for all hook buying needs.
Hello Devon. The only thing this video did was to point out that there are differences. So... what is the "standard" for hook sizing? Is there are chart that shows me how big a size 16 hook should be? Is there a cross reference for the various manufacturer's hooks to standardize them? Thanks.
There is no real standard right now. Things used to be a lot close back in the day when the world revolved around dry fly hackle length as the standard, but with all the modern hooks shapes and sizes it has become a Wild West of sizing unfortunately. The two hooks in the video thumbnail are from the same brand, so you can see how absent a standard is even at a single manufacturer. Our goal with providing lengths is not to develop a standard, simply to allow someone to measure a hook they currently have and see how a prospective purchase matches up.
Appreciate the information. I will say that I personally stick to the same hook "brand or company" where I purchased my hooks from. Just to create consistency. I didn't expect the broad range of hook size for each which is very much appalling!
Brilliant!
Very helpful. Thank you for offering such a good selection of barbless hooks.
This is so needed! It's be great to keep moving this forward and offer the measurement of the gape as well.
It's her interesting to see hook siding done like men's pants... Two sets of numbers (gape size) (length)
I agree with some of the other comments. Hook gap comparisons would be interesting to see.
Outstanding idea, thanks Devin and team.
Perfect winter project, thanks for the hard work
Hopefully this will get the ball rolling with hook manufacturers to start collaborating together to get hook sizes all the same between all the manufacturers.
We can dream
I threw in the towel on this problem long ago and I just started keeping my hooks separated and organized by "type" or "style" (i.e. jig, wet fly, dry fly, streamer, emerger, etc.) and I just completely quit keeping track of and bothering to label specific hook "sizes" with the usual number indicator (#12 vs #16, etc.). Instead when I need a hook I just eye up the sizes I have in a particular "style" (usually from a wide variety of manufacturers) and I pick the hook I want for the job. The only downside of course is that I have no idea how to reorder the same "size" that I want when I run out - hey, I didn't say I'd worked all the bugs out. : )
More of a historical question here. Would anyone happen to know? What was the basis of our hook sizing system? I began tying in the late 1960s and as I recall Mustad was about the only game in town. I’ve always suspected that it was their proprietary sizing system and newcomers simply jumped on board. As years have passed, obviously many liberties have been taken.
Hook gap would be another interesting data point, but I realize that asking your manager for two measurements per hook could have been a bridge too far.
Be sure to let your crew know how much this project is appreciated. Thanks
I think gap is the basis for designating a hook's size, so it makes no sense, to me at least, to be taking only length into account. No meaningful comparison is possible unless you know both the gap width as measured against an accepted standard and the shank length. You also need some knowledge of how both gap size and overall length affect the hook's ability to penetrate and to hold (they're not the same) in order to choose hooks wisely. Then, shape and wire thickness come into play as well. The problem is that there's no standard for sizing and there probably never will be.
@@gregbelcamino7239 "standard" dry fly hook (Mustad 94840) used to be the standard-- it all made perfect sense from there. See my other comment. I'm surprised this knowledge is already lost.
@@JoelSzymczyk I don't think that knowledge is lost; it's just ignored. And that's the problem: no standard, currently.
Much appreciated and a long overdue video! Would be great to have an international standard for competition fishing that could carry over and be accepted. Thanks from NZ.
Hook sizes can be so frustrating! Thanks for your efforts to help us understand them. Years ago I published an article in American Angler called "Size Matters" that talked about this very issue, and how it complicated matching the hatch. To help anglers better choose the "right size" fly, I made the Bugometer---a plastic credit-card ruler that you can use on the water to measure the size of a bug and and your fly. There is also a "benchside" version which includes a table of standard hook size lengths to help the angler when tying so if a bug book describes the length of the adult Green Drake as 12mm you can choose the appropriately sized hook. Check out the Bugometer at Dry Fly Innovations!
Great Service from your team!
I got some Fulling Mill FM50 65 czech nymph hooks in size 20 standard length the other day. It's crazy, they're bigger than all of my other similar style size 18 2x length hooks 🤔 very annoying. We're about the same age, just turned 40. Learned to tie when i was about 10.
... Okay they had the hooks I'm complaining about. Says the fm5065 #20 are 7.5mm. I'm seeing many companies with that as their size 18 scud hooks so makes sense
Great video Devin.
but the hook GAP is more important ... and it used to be standardized. When you said "nobody really understands" about 1xl, 2xl, etc hook LENGTHS, that's not accurate. The gap size used to be more or less standard, and a standard hook reference in the fly world was a "regular" dry fly hook like a Mustad 94840. It was standard gap, standard length, and standard wire gauge. Everyone knew what it looked like. So for instance a size 12, 2x-long had a shank length two sizes larger than standard, in other words a size 12 gap, with a shank length equal to a size 8 "standard" hook... if it was "1x heavy" wire, then it had the same gauge wire as a size 10 would have. It all used to make perfect sense. The "size" number of the hook referred to the gap. Once people started ignoring standard gap sizes, it all went to shite. So a size 14 "wide gap" hook isn't a size 14 at all, it has the gap of a 12 or even 10. Shank length is secondary.
It used to be standardized, but mainly because dry fly hooks set the standard, and so gape size was very correlated to hackle size. Hooks were mostly the same shape, just with small variations in the bend shape for the most part. Early nymph hooks were just heavy wire versions of the same shapes. With the creation of the many modern hook shapes now and modern nymphing tactics and ties, the understanding of the frame of reference has been lost. If you have an extra wide gape jig hook with a shank length that will give you a "size 18" profile in the final fly, then it's confusing to call it a size 14 hook based on the gape, especially to someone without a background in traditional dry flies. If you started out tying on modern hooks, then the term 14 doesn't produce the same mental image as a frame of reference to you like it might if you started tying back in the day when there were only a couple manufacturers making similar sized traditional shapes.
While perhaps a ratio of hook gape to shank length would be useful in creating a true centralized standard someday, we are not that centralized authority and creating a new standardized sizing protocol was not our intent here. We are just trying to give folks the ability to compare a measurement of a hook they own to the measurement of a hook they are considering so they know if the flies they tie on the two different hooks will have the same size profile or not.
Additionally, the discussion of hook gape as a useful measurement is only useful if the manufacturers are adhering to it as a standard, which isn't happening, even between different models in the same brand. The two hooks in the thumbnail are both 16s from the same brand. We have no control over the manufacturers, so again, we are simply trying to provide some level of reference for folks to help them deal with the convoluted hook size world as it is, not as it should be in an idealized form that doesn't exist.
Great work. It was my understanding too that the gape was the original measurement for hook size. It really went off the rails when “wide gape” hooks were introduced. That made no sense in the original scheme of things based on gape giving size. I have used a large variety of hook brands and in order to order online i have occasionally had to overlay hook profiles in powerpoint to guess what hook gape i was getting for a particular hook size. There were some noteworthy outliers even before stinger and wide gape models. For example, I just bought old bulk boxes of eagle claw D057F nymph hooks in size 6 and 8 and they look like totally diff hook models
Good to see some of the crowd understand hook sizing. Well said!
Hey talking tall panda thanks for this video. I like the pinched barb ads a little more holding. I would like to see them bring back old style with a small kink like a u shape in the barb location on baroness hooks with a kicked point and curved in
thanks Devin - well needed
Well done!! Thanks for the effort!
Thank you.
I've had THIS idea: Just create an image database of hooks shot against a standardised grid background, no measuring needed.
This is the ultimate goal, but will take even longer than this project did due to all the photography, editing, and uploading.
Thanks for doing this!
Manufacturers take advantage of shmucks like me 😅
I’m the guy who buys several sizes of the newest coolest hook until I get the right one 💰 💵
What is the difference between the Hanak 400 BL and the Hanak 450 BL? Visually i can see the differences but which is the better hook to tie euro nymphs on?
this would be an excellent follow-up video, to talk about the different shapes and "styles" of hooks and what the pros/cons of using them for different fly designs would be.
yeah, length of the hook is not the variable that needs addressing. The gap determines the size hackle you will use.
Almost all of the hooks we carry are nymph hooks. No hackle is used and overall size profile is the most important characteristic in nymphing.
Nice but what about hook gape/gap measurement?
Agreed.
Thanks for the video Devin. I love how easy your online store is to navigate and the information given about each item. Quick question, do you normally tie inverting tungsten beads on a straight shank hook or do they work well on jig hooks too?
They are designed specifically for use on standard straight hooks, slotted beads will work much better for the jig hooks.
Awesome. Now if you could get the fly fishing industry to develop and adhere to a standard akin to line size. You might be one of the few to have the clout in the industry to make this happen.
Thanks guys what a help!!!!
Can't seem to find the chart you made
Is there any conversion chart anywhere that one could use for reference?
There are so many hooks that is tough to build a reference chart for them all. We do have measurements in a chart for each hook in their product description on our site. If you note the measurements, it is easy to compare them between specific hooks you are interested in.
The hooks size thing has completely gone out of control. There should be some official standard that says what the dimensions are on a hook gap to what hook size it is. It’s a shame. Every hook manufacturer can do whatever they want to do. Also like things like a size 14 2XW why can’t we just call that a size 12? 30 years ago and I never had these problems.
Well, there's no one TO set a standard for this. You have hooks being made, designed, and distributed all over the work, and so far hook sizes haven't come up at the UN council... :)
Thanks!! Brad still works for you??
Good start for an introduction but didn't really offer any real information as to what the sizing is for our needs. Can you give any good info?????
I guess I’m not sure what it is you need then. If listed hook lengths of all the different models on our site doesn’t help than I don’t know what it is that will.