"Karel" wrote

.. Does anybody else tie
nymphs on curved hooks and/or what is your take on this?



It just happens that on a recent month long fishing trip I "used up" various
odds and ends in my tying kit and therefore produced and fished "#18 Sawyer
PT Nymphs" on four different hooks ( all real body lengths were about the
same if not the hook size on the label). Those hooks were all Tiemco and
were models, 100BL, 100 SP-BL, 3761BL, and 2499BL. The last is a curved
short shank, heavy, model, the 3761 a standard wet, the other two dry fly
hooks. Except for the hook, I tried to make all the flies "the same"

The first thing I noticed was that tying on the 2499 was a PIA in comparison
to a shank "level" in the vise. The second thing I noticed was that the
curved wide gape hook made the hook much more prominent ( to my eye) in the
finished product, although the curve was, indeed, kinda cute. The third
thing I noticed was that the 100SP-BL seemed to catch more fish !

Note: On the straight shank hooks I bend the rear of the shank ( actually
the bend of the hook) so that the point is not parallel to the hook shank
.... this is a tiny re-alignment, hardly noticeable. This is intended to
catch the fishes mouth a bit easier, I can't remember where I got the idea
but believe it works. My theory is that the combination of this bent out
( in?) point and the SP model's extremely sharp point made it a little
harder for fish to spit out the fly, leading to more takes being sensed by
this angler ( who sucks at nymph fishing )

There was no attempt at "science" here, I simply had a few each of four
similar sized hooks of different models and a need for nymphs that size,
coupled to a dread of a 70 mile round trip to buy enough hooks to make them
all the same. But, I won't be buying any more curved hooks soon and I will
be buying more SP hooks even though I had previously somewhat written them
off in my own mind as a "sales gimmick" ( I won't pay the extra $$ and
suffer the extra weight of the 100SP-BL for dry fly use, but it may become
my nymph hook of choice ?? )