Hook sizeing

[Team Man]

A fishery I go to has put a maximum of 8Lb line and No 12 hook on the water, so, as my hair rigs were all on No 10's, I went to a tackle shop to get some No 12's to tie some new hair rigs, now I normally use Kamasan hooks but they didn't have any so I bought some Fox 12's, When i got home and went to tie them I compared them with my Kamasan 10's and they were virtualy the same size, so what is it that constitutes the size of the hook, is it the thickness of the wire or is it the width of the bend, or what, certainly when you look at these you would say they were 10's, When they come around to check our hooks I'm going to have to convince them that they are 12's, I think I will keep some in the original packets.

 

They do come around to inspect your gear to make sure you are on barbless hooks and make sure you are not using braid line Etc, its a very clean but very strict fishery........I hope I don't run foul of him

[DavyR]

Hook sizes are indeed far from being standardised - even different patterns from the same makers can look a very different size (e.g. the size 20 Drennan Carp Match looks smaller than the size 20 Carp Feeder). It does make a mockery of fishery-imposed hook size limits, but then it's hard to see what these are supposed to achieve anyway.

[Team Man]

Hook sizes are indeed far from being standardised - even different patterns from the same makers can look a very different size (e.g. the size 20 Drennan Carp Match looks smaller than the size 20 Carp Feeder). It does make a mockery of fishery-imposed hook size limits, but then it's hard to see what these are supposed to achieve anyway.

 

 

Speaking to the water owners wife on the phone, she said they are trying to cut down on the mouth damage, by limiting the size of the line Etc they can hopefully prevent people putting too much pressure on the fish, whether this will work or not i don't know.

 

When I first started fishing this water (Autum 2006) I was horrified by the amount of lip damage on the Carp and some of the Tench

[Dick Dastardly]

The trouble with the "Redditch Scale" (the origonal hook sizing system) is that it makes no provision for modern hook shapes! Several carp hooks now resemble the shape of the "sedge hooks" a pattern designed for fly tiers to represent natural insects.

 

Mind you after writing that I have thought of several makes of hook of the same/similar pattern that vary imensly! Hook size limits have only fairly recently come into the carp world but have existed in the flyfishing world for a lot longer. These variations can cause many bankside arguments between anglers and un knowledgable baillifs!

[Steve Burke]

As I understand it, if you put a hook on a table with the eye or spade end at the top then the size is supposed to depend on the distance between the point of the hook and the lowest point of the bend.

 

It's not the distance from the point to the shank as some suppose. This is called the gape.

 

As has already been pointed out though there are no standards, although I hope the above is helpful.