CHAPTER I. 
HOOKS. 
General observations—Mechanical imperfections of hooks, bend, over- 
fineness of wire and ‘springing,’ shank, point, and barb. Proper 
theory af hooks—Points of a perfect hook, how to be attained: pene- 
tration, holding-power, strength, lightness, and neatness. Existing 
bends of hooks—Sneck, Sproat, Limerick, round, Kirby, and their 
defects; ‘hog-backed’ hooks. New pattern described. Hooks for 
trolling tackle—Triangles and double hooks, tail and reverse hooks. 
Lip-hooks, with gimp loops, metal loops ; fault of existing patterns, 
new patterns described. 
Too much importance cannot be attached by the fisher- 
man to everything that concerns hooks. They are to 
the angler what the main-spring is to the watch, or the 
crank to the steam-engine—the very alpha of his craft. 
The whole art and paraphernalia of angling have for their 
objects first to hook fish, and secondly, to keep them 
hooked. And yet, extraordinary as it may seem in such 
a mechanical age as ours, we cannot go into a tackle 
shop and buy a hook in which one or more glaring 
defects—or offences against the first principles of me- 
chanics—cannot be pointed out. The most common 
fault of all perhaps lies in the shape of the bend. I 
have shown, when alluding to this subject in the Book of 
