Fly Fisherman Throwback: John Gierach's "Larger Hooks for Small Flies"

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Editor's note: Flyfisherman.com will periodically be posting articles written and published before the Internet, from the Fly Fisherman magazine print archives. The wit and wisdom from legendary fly-fishing writers like Ernest Schwiebert, Gary LaFontaine, Lefty Kreh, Robert Traver, Gary Borger, Joan & Lee Wulff, Vince Marinaro, Doug Swisher & Carl Richards, Nick Lyons, and many more deserve a second life. These articles are reprinted here exactly as published in their day and may contain information, philosophies, or language that reveals a different time and age. This should be used for historical purposes only.

This article originally appeared in the April 1979 issue of Fly Fisherman magazine. Click here for a PDF of the print version of "Larger Hooks for Small Flies."

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The use of tiny flies, #20 and smaller, is one of the most significant historical advances in fly-fishing. "Midging" allows the fly fisherman to take advantage of a wider range of feeding situations and constitutes some of the finest illusions ever performed before an audience of selective trout. It does, however, have its attendant problems, the most persistent being the relatively poor hooking qualities of these miniature hooks.

I stumbled onto at least a partial solution to this problem on one of those long winter nights one spends in front of the vise trying out ideas after the supply of old standard patterns has been replenished. I had seen stoneflies and other nymphs tied on English bait hooks and reasoned that such flies could also be tied down the bend of a 5XS hook to achieve a different and perhaps more natural shape.

I tied a dark quill-bodied nymph on a short-shanked hook with the body running just slightly down the bend. The body was thus bent down a little and the tail came out at roughly a 45-degree angle. I felt that the posture of this fly was very much like that of a swimming nymph, and when I compared it to one of my standard ties I realized something else–I had tied a #24-size fly on a #20 hook. Although a certain nonangling member of the family wasn't properly impressed by this realization, the advantage of a larger hook bend, especially on tiny flies, is obvious.

Of course, the abbreviated fly dressing is far from a new idea (the low-water salmon fly comes immediately to mind), but as far as I know the short-shanked hook has never been widely used in its construction. Since more of the entire length of the shank is used for the body, the extra exposed metal one finds on standard abbreviated patterns is eliminated, while the larger hook bend is retained.

Virtually all fly patterns can be adapted to short-shanked hooks (Mustad 9479 down-eye and 9523 up-eye hooks), which are available in sizes down to #20. With a few rare exceptions, this is now the smallest hook size I use, and after several seasons I can safely say that I'm hooking a significantly larger percentage of fish than I was on other patterns.

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