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OPST Swing vs Firehole 714 hook sizes

3K views 15 replies 10 participants last post by  WW Thurber 
#1 · (Edited)
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The size difference between OPST Swing hooks and Firehole 714 hooks is pretty drastic. I know other brands are all different, but these seem way off. Is one closer in size to other brands' intruder hooks? If so, are the OPST hooks smaller than "normal" or are the Firehole hooks larger than "normal"?
 
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#6 ·
Firehole sizing is just out of whack.

I like their hooks, think they're good quality, nice finish, and hold up well...but I will never order them online unless it's simply to replace old stock, simply because the sizes they list are nonsense numbers.

Now I know sizing is subjective from brand to brand, but at the end of the day, "size" has always been determined as a measure of gape. So now that hook manufacturers are doing weird shit like "wide gap fly hooks", sizing numbers mean less now even than the little they used to.

I tie blobs on a bunch of different hooks, and while the Firehole 637 is top notch, I'm tying on 8s and 10s from everyone else...and the Firehole 12 is bigger than a 6 of most brands. Not even close.

So yeah, sizing is a crap shoot, but Firehole is bad at it, even by current industry standards.

On that note, I'd really, really love to see us get away from "sizes" and do it all with a simple 2-value system in millimeters, gap-shank. So a 6.5-12 would be a 6.5mm gap, 12mm shank, for an approx. #10 3XL nymph/streamer hook equivalent. We could still have the normal "heavy/fine wire", and eye descriptors, but that'd really help out the sizing quagmire we have today.
 
#7 ·
Firehole sizing is just out of whack.

So yeah, sizing is a crap shoot, but Firehole is bad at it, even by current industry standards.
What "Industry Standard" are you talking about? Doesn't Exist. What compelling reason exists to have standards for hook sizes?
 
#14 ·
Datus Proper did a great write-up about the confusion brought about by each hook maker adopting their own size-standards. At one time there WAS a fairly common standard- the Redditch Scale. Times change.
As Datus wrote in What The Trout Said - "Makers have only the Alice-in-Wonderland logic that size 14 is anything they say it is."
As has been suggested- somewhere on the innertubes I saw lots of hooks photographed on a grid. Darn good idea. Personally, I'm happy to have all the hook varieties available today and have learned to make allowances for how the various makers interpret sizes.
 
#11 ·
I've thought about propositioning a fly fishing/tying retailer about photographing the products they're selling rather than relying on hareline's (or whosever) stock phots for their website. Accurate colors and documenting the whole range of color options, not just 1/5th of them thrown into photo. Waters West actually does a pretty good job of this, unlike most.

But to that end, I'd love to shoot photos of all the hooks out there against some sort of scale--graph paper, a grid of some kind, etc. Ordering euro/jig hooks has been a total crap shoot the last few years, with a complete abandonment of traditional hook standards and forms. Not without reason, but usually completely without documentation. Buy one brand and about they only thing they change is the hook gap, with the shank being almost the same between say a #10 and a #18. Buy another brand and they scale the shank to some degree.

Of course, the problem with the web is that anybody can see/use that info but order from anywhere else, so I'm not sure it's worth it to a shop to do that. But the hook issue you're describing is real and has gotten very bad in last few years with the infusion of so many additional and/or imported brands.
 
#13 ·
View attachment 299482

The size difference between OPST Swing hooks and Firehole 714 hooks is pretty drastic. I know other brands are all different, but these seem way off. Is one closer in size to other brands' intruder hooks? If so, are the OPST hooks smaller than "normal" or are the Firehole hooks larger than "normal"?
I like the shape of the Firehole 718s which have the same feature as the 714s you've pictured. The length of the wire from bend to point is longer than most hooks. I look for that in a hook as much as I can.
 
#16 ·
When I was a Quality Engineer and had access to a Rockwell hardness testing machine, I tested Eagle Claw 1197 N & B hooks. I had a number of Steelhead break off while fishing the Niagara River. The hooks all broke at the hook bend. The hooks tested out all over map, some were "soft" and some "hard" to the point of being brittle which indicated that their hardening process was poor.
I do not believe there are any "industry standards". I suspect that most hook makers do not want to share their trade secrets.
I am currently tying balanced leeches using both 60 and 90 degree hooks. using Gamakatsu, Hanak, Umpqua and Firehole for the 60 degree flies and been very satisfied with the quality. My 90 degree leeches I only use hooks from Phil and Brian's shop as they are wickedly sharp.
 
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