Fish hook

“ Sometimes the hook is used in shark fishing. The fishermen bait a hook, carry it out in a canoe in twelve feet or so of water, and bring the line back to land. Before very long a shark is nearly sure to seize the bait; and when the fish is fairly hooked, several men haul at the rope and drag the shark into shallow water, where it is allowed to flounce about until it is exhausted, and is then killed without difficulty. ”

“ In fly-fishing for large trout or bass the reel usually carries forty to fifty yards.
Hooks should be of the best quality to be had. Good hooks are still practically all made in England. Shapes which have received names are many, and most of them have advantages for particular kinds of fishing. Among the best are O’Shaughnessy, Limerick, Sneckbend, Aberdeen, and Sproat. The last-named we think will meet more 150kinds of need than any other one. As to size it should be remembered that the hook is to fit the bait, not the fish’s mouth; a very small fish can take any ordinary hook. ”

“ A half dozen of each of the foregoing specimens, firmly fastened on strong, round, even gut, will last two months’ daily salmon fishing in well-stocked streams. An average loss of four or five a day would be by no means surprising, although a single one might kill a great many fine fish. Hooks are apt to be broken at the bend by striking against a rock, from carelessness, or the awkward handling of too long a line. If you find a hook broken in that way, lay it primarily to this cause, and watch the sweep of your cast. ”

“ As soon as seen, or p'rhaps are heeded not,
By our friend Peter, for behold his line
Gently unrolls and cleaves a watery mine.
With patient, anxious, fate-imploring look,
He trembling hopes that now his laden hook
May sink low down into the dark abyss,
Midst fishes' entrails, where it cannot miss
Its deadly hold; and where, till life shall fly,
The barbèd hook immoveable may lie. ”

“ There is a wide variety of hooks, not only for the different fish, but variations in design for the same fish, the choice depending on the skill and preference of the fisherman. The straight hook, or one in which the point is in line with the shaft and not bent to one side, is generally regarded as the most profitable to use, although the great majority of hooks are made with flatted, ringed, knobbed, or plain ends. ”

“ The other kind of hook is also made of mother-of-pearl, or some other hard shell: they cannot make them bearded like our hooks; but to effect the same purpose, they make the point turn inwards. These are made of all sizes, and used to catch various kinds of fish with great success. The manner of making them is very simple, and every fisherman is his own artificer: the shell is first cut into square pieces, by the edge of another shell, and wrought into a form corresponding with the outline of the hook by pieces of coral, which are sufficiently rough to perform the office of a file ”

“ If the fishes are to be killed for our use, there is no way in which they are put to so little pain as in fly-fishing. The fish rises, takes your fly as though it were his ordinary food; the hook fixes in the hard gristly jaw, where there is little or no sensation. After a few struggles he is hauled on shore, and a tap on the head terminates his life; and so slight is the pain or alarm that he feels from the hook, that I have over and over caught a trout, with the fly still in his mouth which he has broken off in his struggles an hour or even half an hour previously. ”

“ While he rushes away from and toward and around and under the boat, and while he is leaping from the water and turning somersaults with ugly shakes of his head, in efforts to dislodge the hook, there is at the other end of the outfit a fisherman, tortured by the fear of infirmity lurking somewhere in his tackle, and wrought to the point of distress by the thought of a light hook hold in the fish’s jaw, and its liability to tear out in the struggle. ”

“ I once saw four splendid chub, all caught with similar hooks; and on several occasions I have caught good perch with roach hooks. If the novice will only remember not to allow slack line when playing a good fish on a small hook, provided the tackle is good and strong, a fish should seldom escape. Beginners often use hooks three times too big for the fish they are after, and it goes without saying, that the smaller the hook the finer the gut should be; for a small hook on thick, coarse gut is not to be thought of. ”

“ But the most interesting natural fish-hook known to me (found in Goodenough Island, New Guinea) is the thick upper joint of the hind leg of an insect, Eurycantha latro, furnished, however, only by the male, who is endowed with the long, stout recurved spur, suitable for fishing. The leg joints and therefore the hooks got from them (about 15⁄8 inches long) are supplied ready made by Nature: they merely require to be fastened to a tapered snood of twisted vegetable matter for immediate employment. ”

“ The selection of the hook depends mainly upon the fancy of the fisherman, and partly upon the locality of its destined use. If fish are scarce and shy, select one that will insure striking; if they are abundant, but strong and vigorous, choose one that will hold. In trout-fishing there are two that bear the palm in striking, the sneck bent and the Kirby bent Limerick; in holding a fish after he is struck, my preference is for Warren’s Lake-trout hook, which, however, does not make a handsome fly; for salmon-fishing, the O’Shaunessey Limerick is the general favorite. ”

“ It is logically certain your fish is well hooked. You cannot pull two strong, sharp hooks through that tightly closed mouth without fastening at least one of them where it will do most good. Oftener both will catch, and it frequently happens that one hook will catch each lip, holding the mouth nearly closed, and shortening the struggles of a large fish very materially. On taking off a fish, and before casting again, see that the two lower hooks stand at right angles. ”

“ There was never a fish-hook [17] like it in the world before, and it was called “Ma-nai-i-ka-lani,” meaning “Made fast to the heavens.” He told no one about the wonderful fish-hook he had made for himself.
He had to get a different bait from any bait that had ever been used in the world before. His mother had sacred birds, the alae, and he asked her to give him one of them for bait. She gave him one of her birds.
Then Ma-ui, with his bait and his hook hidden, and with a line that he had made from the strongest olona vines, went down to his brothers’ canoe. ”

“ A slick is the oil of the menhaden floating over the waves, and extended frequently by tide or current a long distance, attracts the bass, by suggesting to them that their prey is near at hand.{154}
Where the water is clear it is customary in rod-fishing, which is the only scientific mode, to use two hooks; the smaller, some two feet below the other is attached to a fine line or gut leader, and denominated without any apparent reason the fly-hook. Many of the best fishermen never use more than one bait, and where the fish are large and plenty, one is sufficient. ”

“ To tie a fly, the gut should be singed in a candle or bitten at one end, and the hook and thread waxed to insure the hook’s not coming off, which, when a fine fish has it in his mouth, is a heart-rending casualty. Take a few turns with the thread on the shank of the bare hook, nearly to the head, then applying the gut, whip it firmly on by working back to the bend; under the last turns at the bend insert whisks for the tail dubbing, floss or herl for the body, and tinsel if desired. ”

“ The shanks of horse-nails make very good fish hooks. These, when filed down to the proper thickness, must be laid, one by one, in a narrow groove made in a piece of hard wood, and the barb struck up with a chisel or the sloped edge of a knife. One smart, well-directed blow on the instrument usually effects this. The point is now to be filed up sharp, the wire gently heated in the fire, and twisted with pliers—or, in the absence of these, a split stick—into proper hook form, when it is to be subjected to the case-hardening process. ”

“ Nothing is more provokingly exciting than to have a magnificent fish rush again and again at your fly, leap over and around it, [92] break near it or strike at it with his tail, without, however, showing the slightest desire to take it in his mouth.
A fish hooked foul, though he gives a great deal of trouble, and often breaks the tackle, does not afford half the legitimate sport of one that has the hook in the mouth. ”

“ Sometimes, the fisherman uses a spoon hook or other bait in which the hooks are hidden beneath some bright-colored feathers or other material which looks tempting to the fish. The intended victim dashes after the alluring bait, seeing nothing but the glitter of the bright metal or the brilliancy of the colors. He loses his life as a result. ”

“ Drawn into the bare water, and not approving of the extended cleek, he makes another swift rush, and repeats this effort each time that he is towed to the shallows. At length he is cleeked in earnest, and hauled to shore; he proves one of the grey-skull newly run, and weighs somewhat above twenty pounds. The hook is not in his mouth, but in the outside of it: in which case a fish being able to respire freely, always shows extraordinary vigour, and generally sets his head down the stream. ”

“ A landing-net, the iron hoop made with joints, and a socket to contain a handle for it; some use a light hook that screws into a long staff, which not only secures the taking of a large fish out of the water, but also is a useful implement in disengaging the line from weeds or boughs of trees. A disgorger to put down the throat of a fish when he has swallowed the hook, until it is touched, when by pulling the line gently at the same time that the instrument presses down the hook, it will be freed. ”

“ The fish-hooks shown in our picture have been thought to be best adapted for, and really used in, capturing cod-fish in salt water, and perch and pike in inland lakes. The broken hooks I found were fully as large; and so the little brook that now ripples down the valley, when a large stream, must have had a good many big fishes in it, or the stone-age fishermen would not have brought their fishing-hooks, and have lost them, along this remnant of a larger stream. ”

“ The progressive order of hooks used by the Indians or their predecessors in title in North America was, after the simple device of attaching the bait to the end of a fibrous line, (1) a gorge, a spike of wood or bone, sharpened at both ends and fastened at its middle to a line; (2) a spike set obliquely in the end of a pliant shaft; (3) a plain hook; (4) a barbed hook; (5) a barbed hook combined with sinker and lure. This series does not exactly represent stages of invention: the evolution may have been affected by the habits of the different species of fish or their increasing wariness. ”

“ When the bait used is one that presents two flat surfaces to the water, as would be the case with a strip of mackerel, a strong current will set it spinning round and round, thus causing the hook link to kink if it has not been fitted with a swivel, and the same effect is often produced by the spinning of a fish on the hook.
The employment of a suitable ground bait will often make a wonderful difference in the angler’s haul. It frequently attracts large numbers, keeping them near at hand for some considerable time, and apparently sharpens their appetite. ”

“ The curved point approaches so closely to the shank that some persons have doubted their ever being used as fishing implements. It would probably be impossible to hook fish with hooks of this shape, but just such hooks have been brought from Pacific islands by travelers, who report that the natives are very successful with them in taking fish that bolt the hook instead of nibbling at it. No bait is used, as the hook itself looks somewhat like a worm. Twenty-eight dart-heads of bone and horn are here figured, most of which the author believes were armatures for fishing implements. ”

“ The hook (made of bone or hard wood) is baited with salmon-roe. The Indians never use the roe fresh; dried in the sun it becomes extremely tough, and acquires a very rank oily smell. The fish take it greedily, and in this manner large numbers are captured.
Another bait equally fatal is made by cutting a small strip from the belly of a trout, and keeping the shiny part outermost—winding it tightly round the hook, from the barb, to about an inch up the line, securing it by twisting white horsehair closely round it. ”

“ The leap of a hooked fish is always an exciting episode to the angler with red blood in his veins—exciting because as an offset to its probable capture there is the very possible contingency of its escape by throwing out the hook, or by breaking away. So with each leap of the bass the hopes and fears of the angler are constantly exercised, while his pulses quicken and his enthusiasm is aroused. Game fishes often leap a few inches above the surface in play, or to catch a low-flying insect ”

“ Each man had baited his hook with the third of an atuli —at this stage of their life about four inches long and exactly the colour and shape of a young mackerel—and within five minutes after "" Tu'u tau kafa !" ("Let go lines!") had been called out several of the canoes around our own began to pull up fish—four to six pounders. I was fishing with a white cotton line, with two hooks, and Marèko with the usual native gear—a hand-made line of hibiscus bark with a barbless hook made from a long wire nail, with its point ground fine and well-curved inwards. ”