Washboard ripples marked schools of baitfish to my left and right. In front, several amply shouldered fish pushed impressive bow waves as they chased down their next set of victims. Scenes like this aren’t an everyday thing (at least not for me), so perhaps it’s not too surprising I wasn’t paying much attention to anything other than getting my fly in front of the fish. Two consecutive casts provided two quick but unproductive grabs, suggesting I had the right fly and it was in the hot zone. I banged out another cast. Three strips after touchdown, the water heaved up around my fly, and milliseconds later, I was connected to something very solid. Judging from the size of the back that cleaved the surface, I figured the fish was about 15 pounds — a decent striper in any water. Barely a second later, the fly came loose.
Disappointed, but still fizzy with adrenaline, I recast to the same spot. While the fish I had briefly connected with may have left the scene, others were probably still chowing down. Sure enough, a few hard strips into the retrieve, a fish hit the fly. And just like the last time, it was off the hook in less time than it takes to say something uncharitable. I came down from the adrenaline high and realized something wasn’t right with my fly. I took a closer look, and the reason for my inability to hook up became obvious: the point was shot.
More often than we realize or care to admit, small details can make a big difference in fishing success. It doesn’t matter if you have the perfect rod, reel, or line. If the terminal end of the equation isn’t sharp, you are basically practicing a radical form of catch and release.
Distance and Pythagoras
These days, most hooks come out of the packet with decent points, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. An errant cast or a tumbling ride downriver can be hard on that tiny sliver of steel. Even a modest amount of dulling can have an effect on your fishing success. A hook that catches fish at 30 feet may not be able to do so at 60 feet. Most of the time, slack in the leader and line is the problem. Energy that should be transmitted to the hook is lost removing this slack. While it might be possible to cast so perfectly that you have a direct connection between the fly and the rod, the chances seem pretty remote. Some degree of slack in the system is inevitable. And the more line you have out, the more slack you’ll have to deal with. Folks fishing lakes, large rivers, or the surf, where long casts are often part of the equation, have good reason to pay regular and close attention to the pointy end of their gear.
Hook sharpness is important even when you aren’t fishing at long range. This is especially true when fishing indicators. I’m quite sure this type of fishing would have driven Pythagoras nuts. Consider a 30-foot cast with the fly placed 4 feet below the indicator. The long-departed philosopher would have calculated the line-of-sight distance between the rod tip and the fly at just 30 feet and 3 inches. He would have also been keenly aware that he actually had at least 34 feet of line (and leader) separating him from the fly. That’s an automatic 4 feet of slack. But in all likelihood, there was more slack in the system. If he was fishing in flowing waters, he would likely have made an upstream mend, and his rod would probably be held high, to keep line off the surface. Under this scenario, the amount of line off the reel would more likely be closer to 38 or even 40 feet. To come tight to the fly, the smart guy from Samos would have to remove up to 10 feet of slack.
This is why you seldom see indicator nymph fishers using a strip strike, like their saltwater brethren. The short, hard pull that gets the job done in the salt is pretty much useless with indicators. The rod needs to be moved a long way to gather up 8 to 10 feet of slack, which is why you usually see indicator anglers swinging the rod back in a long, wide arc. It looks dramatic, but from a purely mechanical standpoint, it isn’t a particularly effective way to strike. Assuming you are using a 9-foot rod, you won’t come tight to the fly until the rod has swept through at least 45 degrees. Given that the rod already is likely being fished at an angle of 30 to 45 degrees above the water, the actual point when the line comes tight to the fly is often so far back, it’s in pretty much the same position as the end your back cast. This rod and line alignment produces a fraction of the force of a strip strike. If the hook point isn’t sharp, you’ll spend a lot of time prodding fish gums.
How Sharp Is Sharp?
I was surprised to find that none of the major hook makers provide much information on the sharpness of their hooks. They use terms like “ultrasharp,” “unequaled sharpness,” and “surgical sharpness,” but I found no actual numbers. Is a surgical point sharper than an ultrasharp point? Are hooks with unequaled sharpness truly unequaled? Clearly, it was time to get nerdy.
I measured the points on a variety of hooks using a microscope, a micrometer, and some image-processing software. I won’t bore you with too many details, but I should probably explain exactly what I was measuring, to avoid any confusion. When you look at the sharp end of a hook with a microscope, you’ll notice that it doesn’t keep tapering down to a perfect point. Instead, what you’ll usually see is
a bit like a minuscule version of a soft-point bullet. The tapered section of the point transitions into a sort of rounded end. I measured the width of the metal where this rounded end blends into the taper.
Why measure the diameter at that location? Researchers working with arrows and bullets have found that the surface area of the point determines how much force is needed to initiate penetration. Since width is related to surface area through a simple formula (which you no doubt learned at school and forgot long ago), we can use diameter as a quick way to gauge sharpness.
Despite all the creative descriptions, I found the level of sharpness for most hooks fell into a relatively narrow range. Fresh-from-the-bag chemically sharpened hooks (sizes 16 to 1/0) from three different manufacturers all had points ranging from 19 to 44 microns across. I also measured the point on a virgin 1/0 Eagle Claw 413 jig hook, which isn’t chemically sharpened. The 413 had a point of 103 microns. It felt relatively sharp to the touch, but clearly wasn’t in the same league as its chemically fettled brethren.
“Great” I hear you say, “yet another load of numbers I can’t relate to.” Let’s make this a bit easier. Human hair has an average width of 60 microns, so a “chemically sharp” hook has a point that is one-third to two-thirds the width of a typical human hair. A “gnat’s whisker,” as the Brits would say. This probably explains why many folks assume you can’t resharpen chemically treated hooks to as good as new. How could anyone make a point that sharp without the aid of chemistry?
I certainly thought that way for a long time. Then I started to think about all of the flies tied on chemically sharpened hooks that get thrown away because they were dinged on a rock, rod, or log. With typical freshwater flies costing $2 to $6 a pop, and bigger saltwater flies costing $15 or more, the expense of this attrition can quickly add up. And what about the effect on hard-working guides? I pictured some dog-tired guide tying flies, night after night, in a seemingly futile effort to restock the never-ending losses of a particularly killing pattern. “Poor sod,” I thought.
It turns out you can make chemically sharpened hooks as sharp as new, but your handy hook file isn’t always the right tool for the job. We’ll discuss sharpening tools in a bit. First we have to determine when a hook isn’t sharp. That should be simple — right?
Trust the Finger?
Perhaps the most frequently suggested way to tell if a hook is sharp is to drag it across a fingernail. According to the folks who advocate this approach, it’s sharp if it digs into the nail. If it slides, it’s dull.
Maybe it’s just me, but this advice seems a bit vague. To begin with, just how much force do you apply to the hook, and does that level of force vary with hook size? In Advanced Fly Fishing Techniques (Delacorte Press, 1992), Lefty Kreh advises us to drag the point across your fingernail with very slight downward pressure. I don’t know if my concept of very slight pressure is anything like Lefty’s, and sadly, I can’t ask him now that he’s hung up his rod for good. Then there is the issue of how you hold the hook while conducting the test. Should it be almost parallel to the nail, at 45 degrees to the nail, or closer to fully perpendicular?
Some folks use the other side of the finger. In this situation, you aren’t trying to draw blood, you just want to feel it snag on a fingerprint ridge. I’m guessing this is where the term “sticky sharp” comes from. Using your lightest possible touch, bring the hook into contact with the finger pad and try to draw it across the skin. The theory is that a sharp hook will stick, while a dull one won’t. This is the approach I had unquestioningly used for more years than I can remember. I figured it was time to run some actual tests.
I took a bunch of hooks with sharp, dull, and bent points and applied the fingerprint test. I discovered that the hook didn’t have to be particularly sharp to pass the test. I also found that the test doesn’t always detect bent points, a common enough problem with modern hooks that feature ultrathin points.
So it seems neither of the finger tests are foolproof. I must admit this is not what I expected, and it left me wondering how many times I have fished hooks that were simply not up to the task. Losing a big fish, or any fish on a hard day, is frustrating, to say the least. Thankfully, there’s a simple, foolproof solution.
Magnification
Fly fishing vests and bags are typically stuffed with all kinds of gear, such as forceps, nippers, floatant, tippet, and several boxes full of seldom-used (but apparently essential) flies. I’d like to suggest adding one more item — a small magnifying glass. As little as three to five times magnification will help you see the hook point, even with flies tied on masochistically small size 20 hooks. The good news is you can get a small plastic magnifier for under five bucks at places such as Walmart or CVS. Spend a little more, and you can get magnifiers with built in LED lights, which comes in very handy in the evening or on dark, cloudy days.
Another option is your smartphone. The camera feature can also be used as a magnifier. If you have an Android phone, just select the camera and then tap the screen three times. This will give the image a magnification boost. You can access the magnifier on an iPhone by tapping the home button three times. Both of these options will give you three to five times magnification. There is one downside to this approach, however. Smartphones really don’t like being dropped into water.
Ten-Second Pit Stop
A lot of people drift nymphs or swing streamers. As everyone knows, you usually aren’t fishing deep enough if your fly doesn’t occasionally make contact with the riverbed. Fishing for largemouth and smallmouth bass in lakes and striped bass in the surf can be equally hard on your flies. If you fish in conditions like this, try adding a pit stop routine. Every 15 minutes or so, bring the fly to hand for a quick check of the fly, hook point, knot, tippet, and leader. If everything is OK, the fly will be back in the water within 10 seconds. It can be hard to get into this habit, but it’s absolutely worth it. Problems such as a fouled fly, blunt hook, abraded tippet, or wind knot in the leader can happen at any time. Any one of these can cost you fish.
Sharpening Techniques
So how do we resuscitate a fly that has suffered blunt-force trauma? Most fly fishers own a hook file, and some may even have used it. Are these files good enough for today’s chemically enhanced points?
I selected five different-size hooks from four different manufacturers to find out. The points were measured fresh from the box, after a mutilating attack with a flat bastard file, and finally after 30 seconds of resharpening with the fine grit side of a brand-new diamond hook file.
The file was able to resharpen the Eagle Claw 413 to a diameter of 113 microns, just 13 microns thicker than brand new for that particular hook. Based on that, it seems hook files are a good tool for larger, mechanically sharpened hooks. However, things didn’t work out quite as well with chemically sharpened hooks. I was unable to return any of them to their original sharpness. The best I could manage was just under 50 microns. This feels sharp with the finger test, but is clearly not as sharp as new. I doubled the amount of time with the file, but it made no significant difference. I suspect the diamond particles (which I measured at about 160 microns) may simply be too large to create a smaller point. I tried working the point with some fine 1000-grit emery paper (18 microns) for two minutes. This produced a nice polish, but had no measurable effect on the diameter. I figured at that rate, it would be quicker to tie a dozen full-dress Durham Ranger salmon flies.
The Need for Speed
Taking a young man’s approach to problem solving, I wondered what happens if you speed things up? I grabbed my trusty 3,500-rpm rotary tool to find out. A one-inch circle of 1000-grit emery paper was attached to the business end of the tool. Ten seconds with the rapidly spinning disc is equivalent to drawing the hook along a straight file that is 50 yards long at a speed of over 10 miles per hour. That seemed like it should do the job.
I donned some safety specs, secured the hook with a pair of forceps, and gently applied it to the emery disc using just enough pressure to barely bend the rapidly rotating disc. I made sure not to make too many sparks, since excess heat could affect the temper of the steel. After 10 seconds (5 seconds on the top and bottom of the point), the hooks went under the microscope. All of them were within 6 microns of their original sharpness. Success! That should mean a few less sleep-deprived Sisyphean guides.
Better Than New?
On a hunch, I grabbed some brand new hooks and applied the rotary tool. A size 8 Daichi streamer hook went into the forceps with a 20-micron point and came out with a 10-micron point — one-sixth the diameter of a human hair! I repeated the test with a size 1/0 413 jig hook, and the tip went down from 100 microns to just 44 microns. That’s chemically sharpened sharpness.
Rotary tools aren’t too expensive. You can get a cordless Dremel for about $20, which, given the price of most flies, should pay for itself very quickly. Being cordless means you can even do this on the water if need be. Just secure the fly with a pair of forceps, gently apply the rotary tool, and check with your magnifier. You should have hook with “unequaled sharpness” in a matter of seconds. You can achieve the same results with an electric screwdriver, but it will take longer, since most of them run at 150 to 600 rpm. For giggles, I even tried an electric toothbrush. It didn’t work. So next time you are on the water, don’t forget to bring a magnifier and a rotary tool. You don’t want your fishing to be dull and pointless, do you?
