Ask anyone who’s ever fiddled with materials and you’ll see the involuntary shudder when Black is mentioned. While it enjoys status of being a must-have color among fly fishermen, getting a good permanent black will drive both professional and hobbyist to tears.

… and you don’t have to do it yourself to grit your teeth, as most packages of black materials stain fingers, clothing, and skin.

Dye companies have an asterisk next to their black(s), requiring you to double the amount of dye used to achieve a complete deep color. That translates into stained sinks, discolored fingers, and rinsing the material at least three times as much before the water even resembles clear.

Slurps and dribbles are permanent, and the evidence can’t be hidden, as you and the sink are the same color of sepia.

Black is the absence of all color,  it can only be approximated by adding dark colors together – and as a result every vendor’s recipe is different.

Most could be described as warm or cold blacks, as they depend heavily on purple which is a mixture of red and blue. Tossing other colors into purple will raise or lower the red or blue – yielding a warm or cold color.

To further complicate matters is the presence of many colors of black. Black, jet black, carbon black, true black, and even new black, are labels used by dye vendors to distinguish between black-as-night and dark charcoal gray.

They’re all a pain to reproduce and your only certainty is the result will be messy, stain the top half of your torso, and won’t be black enough.

What we think of as black is actually Jet Black, the darkest and deepest of all the vendor variants. Not all vendors call it as such, when presented with a choice, that’s the darkest of all.

Many things can interfere with the coloring process, including natural colors (we assume the black will cover them up), dirt, grease, and oil, and the blend of dye itself. Dyes are made from rare earths and minerals, all of which activate at different times and temperatures – and if the bath doesn’t get hot enough, or is too hot – it’s possible to have a color misfire.

The rinse water at left shows you how visuals cannot be trusted. Rinsing a pound of loose fur in dish detergent yielded a great deal more dirt than we suspected. It also shows why scissors grow dull, not only will the dirt prevent color from setting on the material, but this kind of grit is hell on the sharpest of scissors.

Familiarity with your dye vendor is the only way to know whether your result has been influenced by other agents. Dyeing six or seven batches of material will commit the shade to memory, allowing you to fiddle with heat and quantity if you get something unexpected.

Over dyeing the material a second time, with partial drying in between can usually fix a poor initial attempt, but sometimes it’s the material itself that resists coloration.

Guard hairs and stiff shiny materials are quite hard compared to loose fur or marabou. A rich deep black in Marabou may not be the same shade when dyeing a slab of Polar Bear, or similar tough material. Over dyeing a second time may fix a dark gray, and it may be enough to over dye it with a deep purple, or dark brown, rather than black.

At left is about seven pounds of loose fur (multiple animals), how many “blacks” do you see?

Only the foreground two were listed as Jet Black (left) and True Black (right). The rearmost is Gunmetal Gray, Purple in the center, and the rightmost dark color is Silver Gray. The True Black (right foreground) has been dyed twice with twice the amount of dye as normal, yet is still a close match to both Gunmetal and Silver Gray. This shows why familiarity with the vendor is so important – the labeled color is of little help.

Outdoor light adds a bit of blue to the bucket of True Black. The Jet Black on the mound of drying material shows little change from indoor lighting, it’s still the darkest black in any condition.

For my use the current color of the True Black will work just fine, it’s a component of a larger batch of dubbing that will be a dark gray.

While it showed red in the drain (see above picture) once on the material and exposed outdoors it shows blue, suggesting that if I wish to darken it further I would over dye it with a dark brown – as the red of the brown would cancel the bluish tint shown in the photo.

The rest of the table is yellow that was fast dipped in orange, and then soaked in a weak olive, just one of many secrets to my Golden Stone mix.

I mention it only because my porcelain dye pot sprung a leak while cooking three pounds of hair. Yellow being the most forgiving color and dyeing even in lukewarm water, once I heard the burner sputter – I had time to jam my hand into the pot and cover the hole without parboiling them precious fly tier fingers …

… jaundiced to the elbow is easy for us brown water types to explain.

Test Jet Black, True Black, dyeing hair, bulk fly tying materials, dubbing, Golden Stone, fly fishing, fly tier, acid dyes, protein dyes

With all the boutique players entering into the hook market and many discounters emerging offshore, it’s possible to run afoul of a good hook that fishes poorly.

Most of us don’t consider pinching the barb much of a modification, but the design of the hook often hinges on the barb being present. Plenty of great hooks can be made less so once the barb has been flattened.

At left is an old Partridge CH1A with a traditional Model Perfect bend, hollow point, and small barb. Those delicate little Partridge barbs are easy to flatten but the short point coupled with the Model Perfect bend allows fish to roll right off the hook.

Model Perfect bends aid the fish in that they’re a perfect half circle – making it much easier for the fish to pivot cleanly off the hook.

Sproat and Limerick bends (as do many others) are kinked to lodge the fish in a specific spot, making it a bit less likely for the fish to slide free.

That’s only a marginal advantage as no hook offers anything close to complete protection.

There’s simply not enough straight steel in the above CHIA to offer any margin of safety, with the bend starting just behind the barb a simple headshake will cause the hook to disconnect.

It’s not a function of quality, it’s the design of the hook that doesn’t lend itself to barbless.

By contrast, a Mustad 4450 with its hollow point, model perfect bend, and enormous barb is much more sinister. Flattening the barb is a little more difficult than the microbarb-style Partridge, but the extra length in the point gives greater purchase and while the Perfect bend allows the fish to pivot – enough straight steel remains in the point and barb area to prevent their sliding off so easily.

Both are excellent hooks with the barb intact, but that’s no longer true once the barb is flattened.

Partridge CH1A at top, middle is a Partridge HL1A, bottom is the Mustad 4450, each in size eight. Each style has just a bit more straight steel than the other (as points and barbs differ in each) which assist in holding the fish in place despite the barbless configuration.

As the micro-barb and chemically sharpened needle points have replaced many of the older styles like spear and hollow point, the distance between point and bend has grown smaller. Chemicals bathe the metal and etch on all sides simultaneously – yielding a symmetrical point often called a needle point.

Mechanical sharpening isn’t nearly as efficient, but that selfsame inefficiency (especially when hand sharpened) allows us to displace metal asymmetrically yielding the spear, knife edge, and hollow points. Which can be quite pronounced as in long swoop of the hollow point on the 4450 above.

Shanks lengthen over time and points recede, offering our quarry more leverage than ever. It’s incumbent on us to use the critical eye when enamored of some new hook – as it may have unforeseen consequences when fished.

Tags: Partridge hooks, Mustad hooks, spear point, microbarb, fly tying materials, hook geometry, chemically sharpened hooks, needle point

The next time someone mentions fly tying you can print the picture at left and insist that rehab is more than you can bear…

I’d said, “jump in with both feet” – and meant it, until the vendor plopped another 300,000 hooks onto eBAY. Now I’m hoping you’ll save me from myself, and scoop them up before I do.

I had mentioned last week about the spectacular ancient Mustad iron being blown out by Har-Lee Rod of New Jersey, and just as I think things are winding down, out comes another load of some incredible old hooks – at prices you’ve never seen – nor will again.

“Both Feet” for us hardcore types was about 50,000 hooks (shown above), most were purchased at $0.99 for 500, about twenty cents per 100 hooks.

A cup of coffee costs more …

Many are kirbed or reversed and digging through all those styles revealed some outstanding gems, most of which have attributes unavailable in the current Japanese iron.

As I watch and bid, I’m surprised at the brainwashing that’s occurred. Traditional fly tying hooks without kirbed point and equipped with the familiar down eye are moving smartly, but most of the other hooks are loved only by the occasional odd duck like myself.

As the fly tying forums have asked the question many dozens of times – and most of the answers are dead wrong, indulge me …

A Kirbed or Reversed hook is merely a method to make the hook gape larger. That’s all.

Offsetting the point to the left (Kirbed) or right (Reversed) makes the distance from shank to point longer than if the point was directly below the hook. Think of a right triangle with a line dropped perpendicular from the shank to where the point should be (in non kirbed hooks), if we draw a horizontal line from that spot to where the Kirbed point is – we’ve formed a right triangle. Everyone knows the hypotenuse of a right triangle is the longest side … therefore the gape is “wider” than a traditional hook.

Outside of forgetting about that offset point and pricking yourself, tying on these “bait” hooks is unchanged.

As quite a few packages are labeled in French, it appears few shoppers are translating the labels. “Hamecons Irlandais” isn’t something exotic, it’s merely French for “Irish Hooks” – and “Hamecons Ronds” translates to “Round Hooks.”

While the obvious fly tying styles are disappearing us continental types are picking up everything ignored or … gasp … foreign, for dirt cheap.

I’ve compiled a list of some of the sweeter flavors available, but as sizes are starting to disappear it’s entirely first come first serve.

Mustad 234B, Hamecons Irlandais 234B

I’ve already burned through a couple of boxes of these gems, tying both Czech nymphs and Shad flies. I’m using the #4’s for a hook that looks like a #6 – hence it’s at least 2X short. I bend down the last quarter of the shank about 10° and it becomes a Czech nymph hook, yet has appropriate extra-strong to go with a fly that is fished amid  snags and rocks.

The hook is unforged, so if you don’t like the offset point, bend it back. It’s already twice as strong as the weak Czech wire and you’ll sacrifice nothing in reliability.

Note: It’s only safe to bend an unforged hook, forged wire is much more brittle and is weakened considerably.

The Hamecons Irlandais 267B is the same hook but with normal wire and bronze finish. It is also a Kirbed hook.

Mustad 91300 – Superb fine wire Bass Popper hook, with no takers due to the zig zag in the shank. The eBAY audience either doesn’t recognize what to do with it, or doesn’t fish Bass – and you get 500 for $0.99.

Just cut hobby foam into the right shape, slit it down the side, slide it over the shank and throw some rubber cement into the “slice” to hold everything together … add a pinch of saddle hackle and marabou, and you’re done.

Mustad 4450 – A nice Mustad 9671 or Tiemco 3769 substitute. Unforged Model Perfect bend, ring eye, looks like about a 2X long shank (although it doesn’t say as much).

I am a huge fan of ring eyed nymph hooks and despaired that my vanishing supply was all I was ever to see . Now I’m covered for the next couple of decades, including both even and odd sizes.

No physical reason for “ring-eyed versus down-eyed” – I just like ‘em.

The crowd is wise to the Mustad 9143 Dry Fly hook now – but not before I scored a couple thousand for $0.99 per thousand. Offered in the thousand-pack in size 16, and in boxes for size 18 and 20.

This is a Redditch scale hook and is much smaller than the training-wheels 94840 (Tiemco 100) standard. Recent fly tiers would call the #16 a #18 – so allow for the size difference if you’re used to Tiemco’s or any current dry fly offering.

What the crowd doesn’t know is the Hamecons-Ronds 57552 is even better than the 9143, and available in the odd sizes which will make less of a size difference than a full even number. I stocked up on the #15’s as it is a superb size for my fishing.

For a great nymph hook, look at the Mustad-Limerick 31250. It’s a 3906B lookalike with a Limerick bend, and most of the small sizes were available.

There’s not too many sizes left of the Mustad 3116A, but there are plenty of size 9 and size 2 left. This was my favorite, 2X strong, down eye, Limerick bend, short shank, equipped with needles for points. Absolutely bestial sharpness. All of my Shad flies are being swapped to this iron immediately. Good strong steelhead and salmon hook, strong enough for big Carp – and was available in all the even and odd sizes until I saw them.

For the light wire long shank dry fly, it’s Christmas. There’s a beautiful long shank, fine wire, dry fly hook in the perfect sizes for stonefly dries and big October Caddis. It’s the Mustad 32800, and there’s nothing like it on the current market.

There’s also the occasional 4x Strong or 3X Strong (Mustad 802) hook that have been unavailable for years. Those old codgers in “Rivers of a Lost Coast” have secrets – one of them was to downsize the fly in bright, clear conditions. A 20lb salmon on a contemporary #8 may be ridiculous, but those old hooks with 3X-4X strong attribute were something special.

The rest is up to your avaricious nature. I don’t cover too many subjects a second time, but these are extraordinary prices and will not happen again.

Tags: Mustad hooks, Harlee Rod, long shank, short shank, extra strong, salmon, steelhead, fly tying materials, bulk fly tying hooks, Tiemco, October Caddis, popper hooks, eBAY deals,