Hook

“ Some men had it; a hook was in its golden gills, and they had tied its tail to the hook so that it could not stir, and they had put it in a pail of water that it might not die too quickly, die ere they could sell it. ”

“ Close down to the stones it throws its glare for two or three feet about, and into that glare-emerges a hook—an iron hook—which pokes and prods at>out in the gutters, and now and then fastens like a finger on a wisp of paper and disappears behind the lamp. Following the hook with your eye, you see that it deposits the wisps of paper in a deep basket fastened on the back of a man. ”

“ If two or three are hung on the same hook, it is difficult to take down the undermost article. Rows of hooks should be so arranged that the hooks alternate instead of coming directly under each other. ”

“ Several articles were hung from hooks, and you tried to throw a ring on to a hook. His invariable comment on a ploughman's attempt was: "Hard luck [Pg 181] for the alarum-clock! Give the gentleman a collar-stud." ”

“ Each one takes a turn till some sort of connection is made between hook and eye. All is so earnestly done I dare not laugh or wiggle with impatience. I may sail into dinner with the upper hook in the lower eye and the middle all askew, but the service is so graciously given, I would rather have my dress upside down than to grumble. ”

“ Much dexterity is required in the hand which holds the line at this moment; for a bungler is apt to be too precipitate, and to jerk away the hook before it has got far enough down the shark's maw. Our greedy friend, indeed, is never disposed to relinquish what may once have passed his formidable batteries of teeth; but the hook, by a premature tug of the line, may fix itself in a part of the jaw so weak that it gives way in the fierce struggle which always follows. ”

“ One must have a steel hook, on another rope,—a very useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a low bluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings this rope aloft like a lasso, the hook catches at the top of the bluff, and then the tourist climbs the rope, hand over hand,—being always particular to try and forget that if the hook gives way he will never stop falling till he arrives in some part of Switzerland where they are not expecting him. ”

“ Left so fearfully alone, any other man would have lain with his eyes shut where he fell: but the gigantic brain of Hook was still working, and under its guidance he crawled on his knees along the deck as far from the sound as he could go. ”

“ A particularly effective hook is the barbless hook, which has a sharp piece of wire fixed across the opening of the hook, making it almost impossible for the victim to get away after it has once impaled itself ”

“ The hook, which is as thick as one's little finger, has a curvature about as large as that of a man's hand when half closed, and is from six to eight inches in length, with a formidable barb. This fierce-looking grappling-iron is furnished with three or four feet of chain, a precaution which is absolutely necessary; for a voracious shark will sometimes gobble the bait so deep into his stomach, that he would snap through the rope as easily as if he were nipping the head off an asparagus. ”

“ But even in Roman times several types of hook, fairly well distributed in the Northern Mediterranean, seem unknown in Egypt; for instance, double hooks, barbed or barbless, of the Bronze Age in Switzerland, hooks with a split eye or an eye made by twisting the end of the shank round itself (as found in Crete) and many others are yet to seek. [783]
The cluster or gang hook early confronts us in the tomb of Gem-Ni-Kai. [784] The fisherman here extends his index finger to feel the faintest bite: below the water the line ends in a cluster of five hooks, one of which holds a large fish. ”

“ In the afternoon I drew a wire nail out of the chest, with which to make a fish-hook. The back of the axe formed a good anvil, and the shank of the hoe, the wooden handle being removed, did fairly well for a hammer. With these tools I fashioned the red-hot nail into hook form, using for tongs a pair of clam shells. I drew the point out sharp, bent the hook, and cut a barb over the edge of the axe. ”

“ I was below in the garden, you know, and could not make out what you were up to. You nearly had my eye out with that hook. I say, what a smash you gave it when it caught in the ivy. Was it broken right off, or only cracked, eh? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Representations also fail to help, probably because a hook, plain and simple, hardly commends itself as a subject for artistic treatment. Nor does the primitive Assyrian sculptor, however distrustful of the imagination of the observer, go as far as to depict “by conventional device” a hook inside the mouth of the fish which is being taken! ”

“ The fly might, for instance, be dressed not actually on the shank of the hook, but on a piece of gut or bristle attached to it and hanging loose on the hook so as almost to hide it. In putting on a worm as a bait—the worm having the advantage of being the real thing—we take the utmost pains to conceal the hook; in putting on the fly—which has the disadvantage of being not the real thing but a counterfeit—why should we not do precisely the same thing? ”

“ The illustration on the following page shows the hook when set and before baiting. The body or slip of the contrivance is made by pinning two hard wood sheaves or trucks to a block-piece of any tough wood; a tough young tree is bent down to form the spring; a loop, or bellying of the line, which must be of strong cord, is placed between the trucks, and a small wedge inserted to keep it there. The hook, which is best made from bone or horn, is next baited with a piece of meat, and placed on the ground. When a fox or wolf seizes the bait, the first determined tug he gives draws out the wedge. ”

“ FIG. 123.
If one hook of the pair is lifted and it is required to keep the same ends of warp up for the next picks, the hooks being connected round the pulley W, one hook going up as the other comes down will keep the harness cords stationary, and the hooks A and B can be lifted alternately one up, one down, without moving the cord E, which will all the time be keeping the warp ends up. The shed thus obtained is similar to that in a Keighley dobby; the ends, when once they are lifted, stay in that position until they are required to come down. ”

“ Hook′-pin, an iron pin with hooked head used for pinning the frame of a floor or roof together.—adj. Hook′y, full of, or pertaining to, hooks.—Hook and eye, a contrivance for fastening dresses by means of a hook made to fasten on a ring or eye on another part of the dress; Hook it (slang) , to decamp, make off.—By hook or by crook, one way or the other; Off the hooks, out of gear: superseded: dead; On one's own hook, on one's own responsibility. [A.S. hóc; Dut. haak, Ger. haken.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hook, proving himself a horseman, if no butler, gave the big snaffle bit three jags, which took the youngster's head up, and bringing down his crop on the sleek bay quarters, got the big humped back up straight, and set the great brute going in the deep ground before he knew where he was. ”

“ At Limerick, in Ireland, the best of these hooks are manufactured. A hook, whose point stands outwards, ought never to be chosen, as it frequently scratches the fish without laying hold; if the points were somewhat shorter, and the barbs a trifle wider, the hooks of every maker would be improved. When hooks are blunt, a small whetstone will restore their sharpness much better than a file, which always leaves them rough and jagged. ”

“ We had not caught a fish from the schooner, despite having a tackle rigged most of the days. I had fixed a bamboo rod, about eighteen feet long and very strong, on the rail of the waist of the vessel, and from it let trail a hundred feet or so of tough line. The hook was the most perfect for the purpose ever made by man. It was cut out of the mother-of-pearl lining of the Paumotuan pearl-oyster shell. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But it is also not improbable that in some parts of the world the single hook developed pari passu with the double, and that, on the sea-shore for instance, where man was able to employ so adaptable a substance as shell, the first hook was a curved fragment of shell lashed with fibre to a piece of wood or bone, in such a way that the shell formed the bend of the hook while the wood or bone formed the shank. ”

“ Bait your Hook with a Grass-hopper, find the hole where he lies, accompanied in a hot-day, with twenty or more, floating almost on the very superficies of the Water; choose which you think best, and fairest, and drop your Hook some two foot before him, and he will bite at it greedily, and cannot break hold with his Leather Mouth; let him play and tire, lest you break your Line. If you cannot get a Grass-hopper, then any Worm, or Fly you will. In cold Weather, Fish for him near the bottom, and the Humble-Bee is the best Bait. Some appropriate Baits according to the Month, but I shall Omit that ”

“ It is as effective as the best trolling-spoon made today. With a single hook, either loosely attached or soldered to the spoon, one is more apt to hook his fish, and more certain of landing it, to say nothing of the cruel and inhuman practice of using the triangle of three hooks usually attached to most trolling-spoons. ”

“ If the hook is very large it is well to take several strands of gut and first twist them together by means of a vice fastened to each end, while they are wet and before shaping them over the picker. When the gut is prepared lay it down and take a well waxed piece of silk about six inches long, and holding the hook in the left hand, wind a number of{203} separated coils from the lower towards the upper end of the shank, but not quite to the head. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.
"So, Pan," said Hook at last, "this is all your doing."
"Ay, James Hook," came the stern answer, "it is all my doing."
"Proud and insolent youth," said Hook, "prepare to meet thy doom."
"Dark and sinister man," Peter answered, "have at thee." ”

“ Some hook-like objects are slightly ornamented with incised lines, and they might very well serve as fish-hooks; others are clearly totally unfitted for practical use, and may be quite plain or decorated. Fish-hooks (Fig. 44, A) are used in pairs, being fastened at each end of a piece of fine string, which, in its turn, is tied at its middle to the fishing-line proper. When the piece of twine with its hooks was thrown round a girl’s neck, the two hooks would often hang down her back shank to shank. Two sabagorar similarly arranged occur in the British Museum collections. ”

“ That a note half the value of a minim should at any period have been written with a hook may help to account for the modern name crotchet, which being clearly derived from the French croc, or crochet, a hook, is somewhat anomalous as applied to the note in its present form, which has no hook. ”

“ When any of the hooks or needles in a jacquard get bent or broken, they can easily be straightened, or taken out and replaced by others. By putting a thin blade of iron or wood down through the needles alongside of the hook to be replaced, and springing open the passage, the old hook may be drawn out and a new one put into its place. ”

“ One arm of the hook is lightly caught in a log or a stake driven in the ground, and on the other arm a piece of meat is firmly attached. The bear or wolf seizes the meat, and in its endeavors to carry it off or tear it to pieces, releases the hook from the log. The tree top suddenly flies up, the hook catching the animal in the mouth or lip, and lifting it partially or completely from the ground. ”