I’m relying on a lot of older hooks to compensate for what’s not available, and that’s never a recipe for long term success. What’s needed is a commercially available “extra stout” hook or a “2X short shank” that combines a nice gape and heavy wire.

I keep looking for something other than the traditional vendors and their limited offerings – as it appears hook makers have undergone both a consolidation and retrenchment on what used to be offered.

Last week I stumbled on the Dohiku hook, and through that had a chance to chat with Kevin Compton of Scientific Fly. He’s introducing Grip Hooks, of South African origin at an upcoming Denver Trade Show, and he mentioned the Knapek Hook as another vendor that had aspirations in this space.

A cursory look at their offerings suggests we may see some changes in the mainstream market, as many of these hooks are being adopted by competition anglers – something the US has always been reluctant to acknowledge.

The success of the Czech nymphing style and their dominance of the professional angling circuit in Europe has rods, lines, flies, and hooks under scrutiny. Longer rods are an asset as there is little casting – and with 25 foot monofilament leaders – it’s a cross between “high sticking” and spin fishing.

Barbless hooks have always been available in only one or two styles; a model perfect bend dry fly hook, and standard nymph. Absent are all of the XL (extra long), XS (extra short), different bend styles, or anything else that makes tinkering fun.

That’s all about to change, as most of the vendor’s mentioned above are delivering quite a few styles and variations of barbless hooks for competition purposes – and if any of these features are credible, you can expect them to spill over into the mainstream shortly.

Features that separate these hooks from the current fare:

1. Kirbed hooks – point and shank are offset from one another, typically found on bait hooks, the kirbed hook assists hooking.
2. Long upturned points – these barbless points are much longer than we’re used to in conventional hooks, and they’re turned-up at the tip, akin to the classic “beak” point.
3. Sproat bend – anchors the fish at a single point on the shank, rather than the “model perfect” style, which is an unbroken curve from point to shank. Sproat bends are common to nymph hooks but rare on dry fly wire.
4. Black Nickel Finish – versus the age old bronzed hook, may resist rust better.

Rotary vise users will be a tad upset, as kirbed hooks will no longer provide effortless rotation of the vise head, they’ll rotate out-of-plane, but that can be mitigated.

The decline in the US dollar affects pricing on all imported goods, it appears the target retail price of each vendor is around $5 per 25 hooks. A resurgent dollar would likely lower these costs significantly.

Scientific Fly offers what I’m seeking but they’re not yet available for purchase, a 2XS (extra stout) wired nymph hook, yielding the wire of a #10 on a traditional #14.

I might be the only fellow planning on hooking a 15 lb fish on #14, but my meager skills can stand all the buttressing they can get. No sense tempting fate further using wire that straightens on anything bigger than an enraged Twinkie.

Had to work straight through the weekend again, but I did get a chance to sneak out before dark last night to observe the “Carp Conundrum” and see if I could puzzle out a solution.

The issue isn’t their willingness to feed, it’s a combination of murky water coupled with what and how they eat.

I spent an hour on the bridge just watching and noted the two styles of fish available; a pod of fish facing the bank and eating what appears to be grass roots and weeds along the edge, and there’s the occasional solo fish that has a mud plume behind him – it’s slowly headed upriver in a traditional bonefish pose. Nose down into the bottom and tail just under the surface making an almost imperceptible disturbance.

I can’t get a fly into the bank fish, they’re facing the wrong way and there’s no water between them and their forage. The “bonefish” feeders are more skittish than trout and their mud plume can’t be seen when you’re down at the waters edge.

They’re creatures of habit, and once spooked they’ll return within 15 minutes, as long as you’re motionless. Makes for one hell of a difficult stalk – and I haven’t even got to the presentation part yet.

As I can’t get a fly into eyeball range of the grouped fish, looks like I’ll need to design something that’s heavy enough to ride along the bottom, carries the hook point up, and looks like whatever it is they’re feeding on.

Someone once asked, “If it costs so much more to tie flies, how come you do it?” Simple, if I could get a fly that looks like a severed stalk of hydrilla, with dull olive bead chain eyes, I’d buy snot out of them.

The Roughfisher blog has been kicking butt and naming names, and I’m thinking of trying his latest creations modified for my oddball presentation needs. He steered me to the above fly tied by Sister Carol Anne Corley that looks exactly like what I need – after I throw some copper bead chain eyes on it.

Bead chain will turn a hook over instantly so it’ll ride point up, copper is the dullest color commercially available, and if it fails to produce I’ll dip them in green “tool grip” – a fast drying latex rubber that’s used to dip tool handles. That’ll take the shine off the beads and hopefully I’ll have my Gutbusting BottomRoller Hydrilla Carp Killer.

Naturally I’ll forget all the help I got from the Good Sister and Jean Paul – claiming it “came to me in a vision…”

… which is the other reason you blow all that cash to learn fly tying, so you can appear humble and gracious when you take credit for someone else’s hard work … same as middle management, only with hackle pliers.

UPDATE: The Bernat Boa yarn used by the above fly is no longer made in the “Mallard” color. I found two skeins of it on eBay – at $5.00 each, and the vendor has a couple more at last look.