Light Wire Vs Heavy Wire Hooks....

[Al Agnew]

Maybe it is a matter of lighter power rods or line or something, but I'm still saying that I've never lost a fish because a hook straightened. Period. I've lost trout because a fly hook broke, or at least I lost them because the hook was broken, maybe before they took the fly. I've straightened hooks pulling lures off snags. I've broken hooks with pliers trying to get them out of the mouth of a bass. But I've never lost a bass and then discovered my hook was straightened when I reeled the lure in.

[Quillback]

I've never had an EW hook straighten on me because of a fish, but I've had tines on trebles bend out and cause fish loss. Even that has happened only a few times.

[Greasy B]

It's always been whisker barbed light wire for me. I think the whisker barb may have more to do with penetration than wire diameter. Don't know if I'll ever start using them but I do see a use for using heavier wire to improve sink rate on weghtless baits.

[Mitch f]

This test I was referring to in my original post was using a wooden 2x4 and the guy claimed heavier wire hooks penetrate with less force. I'm sure, in most cases, the kind of point matters greatly. I like most of the points on high quality hooks today as long as they are needle points, the improved process they use for needle points (especially Mustad ultra points) make the sharpness last a little longer than the old styles.

I've never been a fan of cutting point hooks, cuz I once heard Denny Brauer claim that cutting, instead of punching, will tear a hole in the membrane of fishes mouth that can increase with time as the fish is fighting, increasing the opportunity to throw the hook. All points being equal (pardon the pun) I would love to perform my own test seeing which diameter hook would penetrate more.

I'm trying to make a new jig design with a modified football head and a 60 degree jig hook but when you go for a 60 degree hook, your choices go way down. The hook up ratio with a slightly longer shank hook like the typical O'Shaunessy style is better than the standard length but limits the choices even more. I don't know if there is a perfect hook out there but I certainly haven't found it yet.....but the hooks today are overall pretty darn good and will get the job done. Man we've come a long way since gold Aberdeen!!!

[Al Agnew]

This test I was referring to in my original post was using a wooden 2x4 and the guy claimed heavier wire hooks penetrate with less force. I'm sure, in most cases, the kind of point matters greatly. I like most of the points on high quality hooks today as long as they are needle points, the improved process they use for needle points (especially Mustad ultra points) make the sharpness last a little longer than the old styles.

I've never been a fan of cutting point hooks, cuz I once heard Denny Brauer claim that cutting, instead of punching, will tear a hole in the membrane of fishes mouth that can increase with time as the fish is fighting, increasing the opportunity to throw the hook. All points being equal (pardon the pun) I would love to perform my own test seeing which diameter hook would penetrate more.

I'm trying to make a new jig design with a modified football head and a 60 degree jig hook but when you go for a 60 degree hook, your choices go way down. The hook up ratio with a slightly longer shank hook like the typical O'Shaunessy style is better than the standard length but limits the choices even more. I don't know if there is a perfect hook out there but I certainly haven't found it yet.....but the hooks today are overall pretty darn good and will get the job done. Man we've come a long way since gold Aberdeen!!!

Mitch, that result on that test makes sense, but really has no bearing on what happens when you set the hook into a fish. Setting it into a block of wood, which probably had to be locked down solid to something, is far different from setting it into a fish suspended in the water. When you set a light wire hook into something solid, the hook bend itself acts as a shock absorber by giving a little, while a heavy wire hook wouldn't bend. So you would be able to exert more penetrating FORCE with the heavy wire hook, and thus sink it better. But in the real fishing world, setting the hook into a fish moves the fish, probably more than it bends a light wire hook, so the fish is acting as the shock absorber, and probably acting as much or more of a shock absorber with a heavy wire hook. So in that case, the simple ability of the hook to penetrate the tissue is more important than the force you can bring to bear to penetrate it. I can't believe anybody would think that, all other things being equal, a thinner wire hook wouldn't go through the tissue better than a thicker hook.

It's kind of an interesting physics question...energy put into the hookset with both hooks in both materials, energy lost by the bending of the hook and energy lost in the friction of the hook penetrating, energy lost by the movement of the thing the hook is being set into, would give you the final result in penetration.

Hookset-(bending+friction)-movement or give=final result in penetration. H-(b+f)-m=p. To assume from the experiment that a heavy wire hook penetrates better, the difference in m (the movement or give of fish compared to wood) has to be less than the difference in (b+f), the qualities of the hook itself. I don't think you can safely assume that. And, m would vary so much in the real world depending upon what kind of tissue the hook is going into, how big the fish is, whether or not there is current and at what angle it's hitting the fish relative to the angle of the hookset, what angle the fish is relative to the hook point, and how much energy you can put into the hook set, that I would bet that in the final analysis it would all come down to the penetrating quality of the hook overall. The only way to measure that is to measure how much force it takes to sink a heavy wire vs. a light wire hook the same distance into a given fish tissue.

[Buzz]

I vote light wire. I've never straightened a hook on a fish. If flipping in brush I might opt for a bigger jig with a heavier hook, but it's not necessary on the creeks I fish. The only problem with heavy wire hooks is that before the hook straightens out enough to come free from a snag the line will likely break.

[Brian Wise]

The Gama B10S that all the streamer guys love.....I break right and left, so I have settled on Mustad 34007

Crazy. In what instances are you breaking them, Wrench? I have pulled my boat across the river with a B10s attached to a rock more than once. I REALLY like that 34007 for a trailer hook on a smaller articulated streamer (Dungeon, Circus Peanut, etc) and it's great for Clousers.... it just doesn't have the gap that I want for those bigger headed streamers. Mind the gap.

[Justin Spencer]

H-(b+f)-m=p

Ahh yes, from now on this shall be known as the Agnew theory of penetration.

[Bird Watcher]

Mind the gap.

Right on. This forum could really use a little more chiving. Lower the blood pressure, so to speak.

[Mitch f]

H-(b+f)-m=p

Ahh yes, from now on this shall be known as the Agnew theory of penetration.

H-(b+f)-(m+v)=p gotta add the movement velocity, line stretch, rod stiffness