CHAPTER VIII 

 HOOKS 



ENGLAND supplies the world with hooks. Very few 

 countries make hooks outside these isles, and certainly 

 none can compare with the British for quality. This 

 monopoly is justly maintained by constant improve- 

 ment. In no other sort of tackle is the skilled angler 

 more exacting, and he rightly expects to get hooks to 

 suit his own individual taste, of perfect temper, keenly 

 pointed and of a bend that has been found best suited 

 to his particular locality. This has led to extremes, 

 and if anything there is too great a variety of hooks 

 to choose from, many being of fantastic shapes and 

 of little use and causing considerable confusion in 

 sizes and scale, the diversity of patterns forbidding a 

 really inexpensive hook being manufactured. 



The angler, in choosing hooks and gauging their 

 size, must first of all make himself acquainted with 

 the fact that they are made under two scales of sizes. 

 The old Redditch scale, of which the finest is 18, work 

 up numerically backwards to size 2, i, and then i/o, 

 2/0, 3/0, etc., for the largest sizes. This scale usually 

 applies to hooks to gut. The new scale is perhaps 

 simpler, starting at the smallest hook of oooo, or ooo 

 and working up in gradually increasing sizes to o, I, 

 2, 3, and so on. Trout flies are usually gauged in 

 these sizes. But it seems a pity manufacturers can- 

 not adhere solely to the new scale, as the two numbers 

 may cause a lot of confusion when ordering. 



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