Magnus Angus investigates barbless grub hooks.
Osprey Lightweight Grub, think dries and emergers
Osprey VH252
In this article I am going to review barbless grub hooks. Osprey is one of Veniard’s house-brands: in this case, good hooks at competitive prices.
These hook patterns are both curved and barbless. Competition fly fishing rules means there is a nudge towards manufactured barbless hooks in preference to debarbed hooks, which is fine by me, but I do have thousands of barbed hooks to use before becoming fully converted.
I look at these hooks and think Buzzer, weighted Bug, Sedge and Emerger.
Continuous bend, down-eye, fine-wire, 1X short.
Heavy enough for skinny Buzzers, light enough for dries and emerger patterns. The round wire is lightly forged (flattened). The down-eye angle is small, the bend at the eye is slightly before the ring of the eye which is a little unusual. Looking through older boxes and packets, I have curved hooks which are straight eye or the bend is at the ring of the eye and a good number where the bend is, as this, before the eye. For tying and fishing I don’t think it makes a blind bit of difference. These hooks are slightly offset, in this case kirbed, the point goes to the left, though the point itself is straight.
The full range for VH252 is size 8 down to 14.
Osprey Wide Gape Grub, think bugs and buzzers
Osprey VH259
Continuous bend, straight-eye, fine wire, 1X short, claw point.
I’d say the wire used for these is thicker than for the VH252, this is a bigger stronger hook. Again round wire is lightly forged. Straight eye, looks good. The point is in line with the shank of the hook, these are claw points, which look to me like beak points, meaning the point curves inwards, hook manufactures can differ on some of their terms (and sizes.)
VH259 hooks are made from size 8 down to 16 which is a strong wee hook.
So, I have a light wire hook with an offset straight point, and a slightly heavier, larger hook with a straight curved point, hopefully that can be explained with a couple of photographs. The ideas behind both offset and beaked points is that they match with the type of eye, the size and shape of the hooks and ultimately improve hooking. If the gape of a hook begins to look narrow, offsetting the point sort of opens the gape, making hooking more positive.
Beaked or, as here, claw points are really only applied to wide gape hooks. The inward curving point pulls the hook in as it penetrates and on a curved hook this can mean the hook penetrates deeper. The claw-like curved point tends to hold if the line comes slack – not as effective as a barb, but better than a straight point on a wide gape. As a bonus a curved point can bash around a rock or two with less chance of the point being damaged.
These simply fit with many of the flies I tie, nicely made, well finished hooks.
Price: £2.20 per 25
From: Veniard stockists
Samples from The Angler’s Lodge
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