A fish hook or fishhook, formerly also called angle (from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
''angol'' and
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
''*angulaz''), is a
hook
A hook is a tool consisting of a length of material, typically metal, that contains a portion that is curved or indented, such that it can be used to grab onto, connect, or otherwise attach itself onto another object. In a number of uses, one e ...
used to
catch fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
either by piercing and embedding onto the inside of the
fish mouth (
angling
Angling is a fishing technique that uses a fish hook or "angle" (from Old English ''angol'') attached to a fishing line to tether individual fish in the mouth. The fishing line is usually manipulated via a fishing rod, although rodless techniqu ...
) or, more rarely, by impaling and
snagging
Snagging, also known as snag fishing, snatching, snatch fishing, jagging (Australia), or foul hooking, is a fishing technique for catching fish that uses sharp grappling hooks tethered to a fishing line to externally pierce (i.e. "snag") into th ...
the external fish body. Fish hooks are normally attached to a
line, which tethers the target fish to the angler for retrieval, and are typically dressed with some form of
bait or
lure that entices the fish to swallow the hook out of its own natural
instinct
Instinct is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behaviour, containing both innate (inborn) and learned elements. The simplest example of an instinctive behaviour is a fixed action pattern (FAP), in which a v ...
to
forage
Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used m ...
or
hunt
Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/ hide, bone/tusks, horn/antler, e ...
.
Fish hooks have been employed for millennia by
fishermen
A fisher or fisherman is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish.
Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishers may be professional or recreat ...
to catch
freshwater
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
and
saltwater fish
Saltwater fish, also called marine fish or sea fish, are fish that live in seawater. Saltwater fish can swim and live alone or in a large group called a school.
Saltwater fish are very commonly kept in aquariums for entertainment. Many saltwater f ...
. There is an enormous variety of fish hooks in the world of
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...
. Sizes, designs, shapes, and materials are all variable depending on the intended purpose of the hook. Fish hooks are manufactured for a range of purposes from general fishing to extremely limited and specialized applications. Fish hooks are designed to hold various types of artificial, processed, dead or
live baits (
bait fishing); to act as the foundation for artificial representations of
invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
prey (e.g.
fly fishing
Fly fishing is an angling method that uses a light-weight lure—called an artificial fly—to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. The light weight requires casting techniques significantly diffe ...
); or to be attached to or integrated into other devices that mimic prey (
lure fishing). In 2005, the fish hook was chosen by ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' as one of the Top 20 tools in
human history
Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied throug ...
.
History
![Hook (AM 1939](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Hook_%28AM_1939.232-7%29.jpg)
The fish hook or similar angling device has been made by humans for many thousands of years. The earliest prehistoric tackle is known as a gorge, which consisted of a double-pointed stick with a thin rope tied to the middle. When angling, the gorge is laid parallel to the line and buried inside a bait ball, which can be swallowed easily by the fish. Once inside the fish's mouth, the bait ball often softens and gets fragmented by the
pharyngeal teeth
Pharyngeal teeth are teeth in the pharyngeal arch of the throat of cyprinids, suckers, and a number of other fish species otherwise lacking teeth.[gullet
The esophagus (American English) or oesophagus (British English; both ), non-technically known also as the food pipe or gullet, is an organ in vertebrates through which food passes, aided by peristaltic contractions, from the pharynx to the ...](_blank)
, similar to how a
fish bone
Fish bone is any bone of a fish. Fish bone also includes the bony, delicate parts of the skeleton of bony fish, such as ribs and fin rays, but especially the ossification of connective tissue lying transversely inclined backwards to the ribs betwe ...
or chicken bone may
pierce and obstruct a man's esophagus. They performed similar anchoring functions to hooks, but needed ''both'' ends to claw firmly into the fish's gullet to work properly.
The world's oldest fish hooks (made from
sea snail
Sea snail is a common name for slow-moving marine gastropod molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the ...
shells) were discovered in Sakitari Cave in
Okinawa Island
is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands of Japan in the Kyushu region. It is the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan. The island is approximately long, an average wide, and has an ...
dated between 22,380 and 22,770 years old.
They are older than the fish hooks from the
Jerimalai
Jerimalai is a limestone cave southeast of Tutuala, on the eastern tip of East Timor. Fish remains and fish hooks excavated in Jerimalai provide evidence for advanced fishing technique by inhabitants of Timor 42,000 years ago.
Jerimalai has the ...
cave in
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...
dated between 23,000 and 16,000 years old,
and New Ireland in Papua New Guinea dated 20,000 to 18,000 years old.
The earliest fish hooks in the Americas, dating from about 11,000
B.P., have been reported from
Cedros Island
Cedros Island (''Isla de Cedros'', "island of cedars" in Spanish) is an island in the Pacific Ocean belonging to the state of Baja California, Mexico. The dry and rocky island had a population of 1,350 in 2005 and has an area of which include ...
on the west coast of
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. These fish hooks were made from sea shells.
Shells provided a common material for fish hooks found in several parts of the world, with the shapes of prehistoric shell fish hook specimens occasionally being compared to determine if they provide information about the migration of people into the Americas.
An early written reference to a fish hook is found with reference to the
Leviathan
Leviathan (; he, לִוְיָתָן, ) is a sea serpent noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Amos, and, according to some ...
in the
Book of Job
The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars ar ...
41:1; ''Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?'' Fish hooks have been crafted from all sorts of materials including wood, animal and human bone, horn, shells, stone, bronze, iron, and up to present day materials. In many cases, hooks were created from multiple materials to leverage the strength and positive characteristics of each material.
Norwegians
Norwegians ( no, nordmenn) are a North Germanic ethnic group and nation native to Norway, where they form the vast majority of the population. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegians are descended from the N ...
as late as the 1950s still used
juniper
Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...
wood to craft
Burbot
The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only gadiform (cod-like) freshwater fish
Freshwater fish are those that spend some or all of their lives in fresh water, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 1.05%. These environments di ...
hooks.
Quality steel hooks began to make their appearance in Europe in the 17th century and hook making became a task for specialists.
[The Bridgeman Art Library]
Sections
![How to tie a hook](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/How_to_tie_a_hook.jpg)
The hook can be divided into different portions from the back ends to the front:
* The eye is the circular ring/loop at the back end to which fishing lines can be attached via
knot
A knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including hitches, bends, loop knots, and splices: a ''hitch'' fastens a rope to another object; a ' ...
s, and (typically) receives the pulling force from the line.
* The shank is the (usually) straight shaft section of the hook, which relays pulling force from the line to the hook bend.
* The bend is the section where the hook curves back from the shank.
* The barb is a small reverse-pointing (relative to the main hook point) spike that grabs the surrounding fish
tissue and stops the hook from sliding back out of its anchorage. Hooks that lack barbs are thus ''barbless''.
* The point is the distalmost portion where the hook tapers into a sharp end, which pierces and embeds into the fish's tissue.
The perpendicular distance between the hook point and the frontmost inner arc of the bend is known as the bite of the hook, which indicates the maximum depth the hook can be embedded or ''
set
Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
*Set (mathematics), a collection of elements
*Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively
Electro ...
''. The width of the opening between the point and the shank is called the gap or mouth of the hook, which dictates the thickness of the tissue that the hook can catch.
Hook types
There are a large number of different types of fish hooks. At the macro level, there are bait hooks, fly hooks and lure hooks. Within these broad categories there are wide varieties of hook types designed for different applications. Hook types differ in shape, materials, points and barbs, and eye type, and ultimately in their intended application. When individual hook types are designed the specific characteristics of each of these hook components are optimized relative to the hook's intended purpose. For example, a delicate dry fly hook is made of thin wire with a tapered eye because weight is the overriding factor. Whereas Carlisle or Aberdeen light wire bait hooks make use of thin wire to reduce injury to live bait but the eyes are not tapered because weight is not an issue. Many factors contribute to hook design, including corrosion resistance, weight, strength, hooking efficiency, and whether the hook is being used for specific types of bait, on different types of lures or for different styles of flies. For each hook type, there are ranges of acceptable sizes. For all types of hooks, sizes range from 32 (the smallest) to 20/0 (the largest).
Shapes and names
Hook shapes and names are as varied as fish themselves. In some cases, hooks are identified by a traditional or historic name, e.g. Aberdeen, Limerick or O'Shaughnessy. In other cases, hooks are merely identified by their general purpose or have included in their name, one or more of their physical characteristics. Some manufacturers just give their hooks model numbers and describe their general purpose and characteristics. For example:
* ''Eagle Claw'': 139 is a Snelled Baitholder, Offset, Down Eye, Two Slices, Medium Wire
* ''Lazer Sharp'': L2004EL is a
Circle
A circle is a shape consisting of all points in a plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the centre. Equivalently, it is the curve traced out by a point that moves in a plane so that its distance from a given point is const ...
Sea, Wide Gap, Non-Offset, Ringed Eye, Light Wire
* ''Mustad Model'': 92155 is a Beak Baitholder hook
* ''Mustad Model'': 91715D is an O'Shaughnessy Jig Hook, 90-degree angle
* ''TMC Model 300'': Streamer D/E, 6XL, Heavy wire, Forged, Bronze
* ''TMC Model 200R'': Nymph & Dry Fly Straight eye, 3XL, Standard wire, Semi-dropped point, Forged, Bronze
The shape of the hook shank can vary widely from merely straight to all sorts of curves, kinks, bends and offsets. These different shapes contribute in some cases to better hook penetration, fly imitations or bait holding ability. Many hooks intended to hold dead or artificial baits have sliced shanks which create barbs for better baiting holding ability.
Jig
The jig ( ga, port, gd, port-cruinn) is a form of lively folk dance in compound metre, as well as the accompanying dance tune. It is most associated with Irish music and dance. It first gained popularity in 16th-century Ireland and parts of ...
hooks are designed to have lead weight molded onto the hook shank. Hook descriptions may also include shank length as standard, extra-long, 2XL, short, etc. and wire size such as fine wire, extra heavy, 2X heavy, etc.
Single, double and triple hooks
Hooks are designed as either ''single'' hooks—a single eye, shank and point; ''double'' hooks—a single eye merged with two shanks and points; or ''triple''—a single eye merged with three shanks and three evenly spaced points. Double hooks are formed from a single piece of wire and may or may not have their shanks brazed together for strength. Treble hooks are formed by adding a single eyeless hook to a double hook and brazing all three shanks together. Double hooks are used on some artificial lures and are a traditional fly hook for Atlantic Salmon flies, but are otherwise fairly uncommon. Treble hooks are used on all sorts of artificial lures as well as for a wide variety of bait applications.
Bait hook shapes and names
Bait hook shapes and names include the Salmon Egg, Beak, O'Shaughnessy, Baitholder, Shark Hook, Aberdeen, Carlisle, Carp Hook, Tuna Circle, Offset Worm,
Circle Hook
A circle hook is a type of fish hook which is sharply curved back in a circular shape. It has become widely used among Fisherman, anglers in recent years because the hook generally catches more fish and is rarely swallowed. Since the circle hook ...
, suicide hook, Long Shank, Short Shank, J Hook, Octopus Hook and Big Game Jobu hooks.
Fly hook shapes and names
Fly hook shapes include Sproat, Sneck, Limerick, Kendal, Viking, Captain Hamilton, Barleet, Swimming Nymph, Bend Back, Model Perfect, Keel, and Kink-shank.
Points and barbs
![Barbed vs barbless hooks](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Barbed_vs_barbless_hooks.jpg)
The hook point is probably the most important part of the hook, because it is the point that must penetrate into the fish's flesh first if the hook is to have any anchorage whatsoever. Both the profile of the hook point and its angulation influence how well the point will pierce the tissue. Hook points are mechanically (ground) or chemically sharpened.
Most modern hooks are ''barbed'', and the backward-protruding barb help secure the hook anchorge by catching surrounding flesh to stop the point from sliding back out of the penetration. Because the barb increases the
cross-sectional area of the hook point, it also negatively affect how far the point penetrates under the same force, although the tissue-grabbing ability of the barb alone is usually sufficient for maintaining the hook anchorage without needing a deep penetration.
Some hooks are ''barbless'', with a simply tapered point and lacking any barb. Historically, ancient fish hooks were all barbless, but today barbless hooks are still used mainly to facilitate quicker hook removal and make
catch-and-release
Catch and release is a practice within recreational fishing where after capture, often a fast measurement and weighing of the fish is performed, followed by posed photography as proof of the catch, and then the fish are unhooked and returned ...
less hurtful for the fish. The downside of barbless hooks is that because there is no barb to help secure the point anchorage, the hook is theoretically more susceptible to dislodging unless the penetration is maintained with a constantly taut line tension. There are however also some arguments that a barbless hook point will penetrate more smoothly into the fish tissue and thus allow a deeper
hookset
In recreational fishing terminology, the hookset or setting the hook is when an angler makes a sudden lifting motion to a fishing rod in order to pull the line and anchor the fish hook firmly into the mouth of a fish once it has gulped in the hook ...
, compensating for the absence of barbs. Having a deeper hookset also means the
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
tends to be concentrated nearer towards the hook's bend rather than the point, allowing it to better withstand a heavier
pulling load.
Hook point types
Hook points are also described relative to their offset from the hook shank. A kerbed hook point is offset to the left, a straight point has no offset and a reversed point is offset to the right.
Hook points are commonly referred to by these names: needle point, rolled-in, hollow, spear, beak, mini-barb, semi-dropped and knife edge. Some other hook point names are used for branding by manufacturers.
Eyes
![FishHooks](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/FishHooks.JPG)
The eye of the hook is the widened ring/loop at its proximal end, with a hole where the fishing line (typically the
leader line) is passed through (threaded) for fastening via
knot
A knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including hitches, bends, loop knots, and splices: a ''hitch'' fastens a rope to another object; a ' ...
-tying. Hook eye design is usually optimized for either strength, weight and/or presentation. Typical eye types include:
* Ringed eye or ball eye — a circular loop often with a closely opposed gap between the loop end and the loop base;
* Brazed eye — like a ringed eye, but the loop end is welded shut fully without any gap;
* Tapered eye — like a ringed eye, but with a pointed loop end;
* Looped eye — the loop end is elongated with the extended portion laid parallel to the hook shank;
* Needle eye — the eye hole is ellipsical, or just a narrow slit.
Most hook eyes are directly knotted to the fishing line and are responsible for relaying the pulling force from the line onto the hook body, but sometimes the line is passed cleanly through the eye and tied directly onto the shank instead of onto the eye loop — this is known as a
snell knot
The snell knot is a hitch knot used in angling to attach a fishing line to the ''shank'' (instead of the eye) of a fishing hook
A fish hook or fishhook, formerly also called angle (from Old English ''angol'' and Proto-Germanic ''*angulaz''), i ...
or "snelling", and the eye does not take part in transferring any force, merely serving to restrict line wobbling and knot sliding. In
fishing lure
A fishing lure is a broad type of artificial angling baits that are replicas designed to mimic real prey animals and attract the attention of predatory fish, using appearances, flashy colors, bright reflections, movements, vibrations and/or loud ...
s, it is also not uncommon to see the hook being linked to the lure via a
split ring through the eye, which allows the hook more
range of motion
Range of motion (or ROM), is the linear or angular distance that a moving object may normally travel while properly attached to another. It is also called range of travel (or ROT), particularly when talking about mechanical devices and in mechanic ...
.
Hook eyes can also be categorized into three types according to the angulation of the loop plane against the shank, where hooks with bent/"turned" eyes being more optimized for snelling:
* Straight — the eye is in-line with the shank;
* Up-turned — the eye is angled ''away from'' the hook point;
* Down-turned — the eye is angled ''towards'' the hook point.
Some hooks, such as the traditional Japanese ''
Tenkara'' hooks, lack any opening for the line to be threaded, and are thus eyeless. Eyeless hooks instead have a widened "
spade
A spade is a tool primarily for digging consisting of a long handle and blade, typically with the blade narrower and flatter than the common shovel. Early spades were made of riven wood or of animal bones (often shoulder blades). After the a ...
end" to help snelling the line onto the shank without slipping.
Size
There are no internationally recognized standards for hooks and thus size is somewhat inconsistent between manufacturers. However, within a manufacturer's range of hooks, hook sizes are consistent.
Hook sizes generally are referred to by a numbering system that places the size 1 hook in the middle of the size range. Smaller hooks are referenced by larger
whole numbers (e.g. 1, 2, 3...). Larger hooks are referenced for size increases by increasing whole numbers followed by a "/" and a "0" (i.e. sizes ''over zero''), for example, 1/0 (read as "one aught"), 2/0, 3/0.... The numbers represent relative sizes, normally associated with the gap (the distance from the point tip to the shank). The smallest size available is 32 and largest is 20/0.
See also
*
Angling
Angling is a fishing technique that uses a fish hook or "angle" (from Old English ''angol'') attached to a fishing line to tether individual fish in the mouth. The fishing line is usually manipulated via a fishing rod, although rodless techniqu ...
*
Flossing
Dental floss is a cord of thin filaments used in interdental cleaning to remove food and dental plaque from between teeth or places a toothbrush has difficulty reaching or is unable to reach. Its regular use as part of oral cleaning is designed ...
References
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fish Hook
Hook
A hook is a tool consisting of a length of material, typically metal, that contains a portion that is curved or indented, such that it can be used to grab onto, connect, or otherwise attach itself onto another object. In a number of uses, one e ...