Hooks Part I: A little history

While not all fishing is done with hooks (e.g. spear or net fishing) all fly fishing is, and the hook is the canvas of the fly tyer. Therefor it is worth while to spend some time getting acquainted with these seemingly simple materials.


The generic fish hook that we all know well is a relatively recent invention. In fact, Frederic M. Halford in his 1886 book “Floating Flies and How to Dress Them” spends nearly 3 pages discussing the merits of the “eyed hook” and predicts that “Before many years are past the old fashioned fly, dressed on a hook attached to a length of gut, will be practically obsolete...” So we have only had eyed fish hooks for about 125 years.


The earliest known hooks have been discovered in the middle east and are dated to approximately 7000 BC. The first hooks, were really not hooks at all, but devices called gouges. A gouge looks like a pointed stick and would be tied to the line in the middle of the shaft. Bait would be impaled on the gouge, and when the fish took the bait, pulling on the line would theoretically cause the gouge to wedge in the fish’s mouth or throat, although the probability of success was probably quite low in practice. Early hooks were fashioned from a variety of materials including wood, bone, shell, horn, and stone.


Now in terms of fly tying, the earliest record of someone tying something to a hook to imitate an insect comes from the famous passage from Aelian in his Nature of Animals written approximately 200 AD. I reproduce excerpts of the pertinent lines here, not because they are unknown or difficult to find, but because I am always struck by how little the endevour has changed in almost 2000 years:


“ I have heard of a Macedonian way of catching fish, and it is this...These fish feed upon a fly peculiar to the country, which hovers on the river....When then the fish observes a fly on the surface, it swims quietly up, afraid to stir the water above, lest it should scare away its prey; then coming up by its shadow, it opens its mouth gently and gulps down the fly...Now though the fishermen know this, they do not use these flies at all for bait for fish...but they have planned a snare for the fish...They fasten red (crimson red) wool around a hook, and fix onto the wool two feathers which grow under a cock’s wattles, and which in colour are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the colour, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive.”

Next: The anatomy of a fishing hook