spectr17
05-06-2010, 08:34 PM
NO KNOT HOOKS -- matthews column-ONS -- 06may10
New no-knot hooks make fishing easier for kids and old men
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service (http://www.OutdoorNewsService.com)
Once upon a time, I prided myself in being able to quickly tie a whole host of knots used when joining fishing line to hooks – clinch knots, improved clinches, loop-clinches or Trilene knots, Palomars, Uni knots, and I even learned how to tie a snell. As a fly-fisherman, I also could tie a nail knot in the field without any tubing or other devices, joining the fly line to a leader. I made my own tapered leaders using blood knots instead of the easier but sloppy-looking surgeon’s knot.
But I’ve watched even simple knots intimidate my kids and their friends when they were getting started fishing. I’ve watched my wife struggle for a number of years tying on flies because of her always-weak close-up vision (and refusal to take reading glasses with her). And since I’m now 56, I can identify. Today, I have a hard time seeing the eye of a hook so I could thread the line -- even with my bifocals -- and my finger dexterity and sensitivity isn’t what it was just a decade ago. All those fancy knots of my youth need good lighting and magnifying glasses today, if I tie them at all. I recently sat on a rock next to a stream and took 10 minutes just to change a fly. Ten minutes for a 30-second job.
Sound familiar?
Well, cowboy, there’s a new hook in fishing town, and you don’t have to know how to tie a knot to use it. I saw it for the first time at a birthday party recently, and mumbled something profound like, “Wow, this is awesome.” I sat there for an hour playing with the hooks and a piece of monofilament line. I just about attach it to the line with my eyes closed, and I couldn’t make it slip or come free.
Write this name down: Easy2Hook.
http://www.jesseshunting.com/images/no_knot_hook.jpg
“In our company, you get fined $1 for using the word, ‘knot.’ We say ‘loop, wrap, pull tight, and go fishing.’ When I first saw this hook, I said, ‘this is going to revolutionize fishing,’ and I think that’s true,” said Ron Baskett of San Bernardino and principal in the company Outdoor Specialty Innovations which has the exclusive rights in the United States to this new hook design.
That’s more elegant and insightful than my “wow!”
The product was unveiled by Baskett at this past year’s I-Cast Show, the fishing tackle industry’s trade show, and it has received rave reviews. Baskett said they sent 200,000 hooks to 50,000 members of the North American Fishing Club and had an 81 percent approval rating -- about the highest ever.
Baskett said that most anglers’ initial reaction is “this can’t possibly work.” And then when you tinker with it a while and actually fish it, and you are dazzled.
The design is simple. Imagine a standard hook of any design with a small ball about the same size as the wire diameter of the hook, welded on the top of the hook shank just behind the hook eye. The eye of the hook is open slightly. To attach the line, you make a loop in it, put the loop over the hook and behind the ball on the hook shank, and then wrap it forward toward the eye. Then the doubled line is looped into the open hook eye and pulled taut. You then trim the short end of the line off about 1/4-inch from the hook eye and go fishing.
This can’t possibly work. We all think that the first time (and maybe for about an hour’s worth of tinkering with it and the first couple of times we fish with it). But you quickly find that it works really well, and makes your fishing life easier, quicker, and simpler.
But the design can be used on more than just hooks. Baskett’s son Chris came up with the idea of making an Easy2Hook adaptor for lures. They’re like a hook without the hook (only the shank with a closed ring at one end, the little ball, and the open eye at the other). Thread them on the split rings that come on just about every lure on the market, and you can use the no-knot, quick-change system with just about everything in your tackle box. Baskett said they are also working on a double-ended system adaptor so you can join main line to leader without knots, too. Do I sound giddy?
Of course, with a couple of exceptions, tackle buyers across the country aren’t as savvy about these kinds of things as you and I, and you can’t find Easy2Hook hooks in the local WalMart, BassPro, or Turner’s Outdoorsman. Yet. But they will be finding their way into smaller, local tackle shops this year, and you can order them on-line now directly from Baskett’s company (Easy-2- Hook USA - Outdoor Specialty Innovations - (http://www.OutdoorSpecialtyInnovations.com)). They’re not the cheapest hook on the market, but they certainly won’t set you back near as much as an over-priced Gamakatsu.
Those of you who’ve read my column for a few years know that I don’t write about a specific product very often. Perhaps, I’m jaded, but there are not a lot of fishing products to come along over the last 100 years that you can honestly say have made a big impact in fishing. I can think of two: Spinning reels and superlines have changed fishing dramatically, making the sport easier and more accessible to guys like me. I’m still not adept with a baitcasting reel even after 30 years of constant effort (it must be a thumb disfunction of some kind). But I can cast a spinning or spincast reel adeptly all day.
Monofilament nylon fishing line, while a boon because of its invisibility, was also a nemesis for spinning reel fishermen. Even if you did everything right when putting the line on the reel, at some point in your fishing season the line explodes off the reel, knotting itself into a massive tangle that can only be fixed with nail clippers or scissors and a new spool of line. But a spinning reel with one of today’s superlines made of Spectra is a tangle-free, long-casting, long-wearing, problem-free machine.
Superlines cast like a dream and have incredible sensitivity because they don’t stretch and have no memory. They also practically never wear out. You can add a mono leader if you really believe you need less line visibility.
Spinning reels were invented about the time I was born, and Spectra lines are -- what? -- are decade or so old now. And now there are no-knot hooks.
New no-knot hooks make fishing easier for kids and old men
By JIM MATTHEWS Outdoor News Service (http://www.OutdoorNewsService.com)
Once upon a time, I prided myself in being able to quickly tie a whole host of knots used when joining fishing line to hooks – clinch knots, improved clinches, loop-clinches or Trilene knots, Palomars, Uni knots, and I even learned how to tie a snell. As a fly-fisherman, I also could tie a nail knot in the field without any tubing or other devices, joining the fly line to a leader. I made my own tapered leaders using blood knots instead of the easier but sloppy-looking surgeon’s knot.
But I’ve watched even simple knots intimidate my kids and their friends when they were getting started fishing. I’ve watched my wife struggle for a number of years tying on flies because of her always-weak close-up vision (and refusal to take reading glasses with her). And since I’m now 56, I can identify. Today, I have a hard time seeing the eye of a hook so I could thread the line -- even with my bifocals -- and my finger dexterity and sensitivity isn’t what it was just a decade ago. All those fancy knots of my youth need good lighting and magnifying glasses today, if I tie them at all. I recently sat on a rock next to a stream and took 10 minutes just to change a fly. Ten minutes for a 30-second job.
Sound familiar?
Well, cowboy, there’s a new hook in fishing town, and you don’t have to know how to tie a knot to use it. I saw it for the first time at a birthday party recently, and mumbled something profound like, “Wow, this is awesome.” I sat there for an hour playing with the hooks and a piece of monofilament line. I just about attach it to the line with my eyes closed, and I couldn’t make it slip or come free.
Write this name down: Easy2Hook.
http://www.jesseshunting.com/images/no_knot_hook.jpg
“In our company, you get fined $1 for using the word, ‘knot.’ We say ‘loop, wrap, pull tight, and go fishing.’ When I first saw this hook, I said, ‘this is going to revolutionize fishing,’ and I think that’s true,” said Ron Baskett of San Bernardino and principal in the company Outdoor Specialty Innovations which has the exclusive rights in the United States to this new hook design.
That’s more elegant and insightful than my “wow!”
The product was unveiled by Baskett at this past year’s I-Cast Show, the fishing tackle industry’s trade show, and it has received rave reviews. Baskett said they sent 200,000 hooks to 50,000 members of the North American Fishing Club and had an 81 percent approval rating -- about the highest ever.
Baskett said that most anglers’ initial reaction is “this can’t possibly work.” And then when you tinker with it a while and actually fish it, and you are dazzled.
The design is simple. Imagine a standard hook of any design with a small ball about the same size as the wire diameter of the hook, welded on the top of the hook shank just behind the hook eye. The eye of the hook is open slightly. To attach the line, you make a loop in it, put the loop over the hook and behind the ball on the hook shank, and then wrap it forward toward the eye. Then the doubled line is looped into the open hook eye and pulled taut. You then trim the short end of the line off about 1/4-inch from the hook eye and go fishing.
This can’t possibly work. We all think that the first time (and maybe for about an hour’s worth of tinkering with it and the first couple of times we fish with it). But you quickly find that it works really well, and makes your fishing life easier, quicker, and simpler.
But the design can be used on more than just hooks. Baskett’s son Chris came up with the idea of making an Easy2Hook adaptor for lures. They’re like a hook without the hook (only the shank with a closed ring at one end, the little ball, and the open eye at the other). Thread them on the split rings that come on just about every lure on the market, and you can use the no-knot, quick-change system with just about everything in your tackle box. Baskett said they are also working on a double-ended system adaptor so you can join main line to leader without knots, too. Do I sound giddy?
Of course, with a couple of exceptions, tackle buyers across the country aren’t as savvy about these kinds of things as you and I, and you can’t find Easy2Hook hooks in the local WalMart, BassPro, or Turner’s Outdoorsman. Yet. But they will be finding their way into smaller, local tackle shops this year, and you can order them on-line now directly from Baskett’s company (Easy-2- Hook USA - Outdoor Specialty Innovations - (http://www.OutdoorSpecialtyInnovations.com)). They’re not the cheapest hook on the market, but they certainly won’t set you back near as much as an over-priced Gamakatsu.
Those of you who’ve read my column for a few years know that I don’t write about a specific product very often. Perhaps, I’m jaded, but there are not a lot of fishing products to come along over the last 100 years that you can honestly say have made a big impact in fishing. I can think of two: Spinning reels and superlines have changed fishing dramatically, making the sport easier and more accessible to guys like me. I’m still not adept with a baitcasting reel even after 30 years of constant effort (it must be a thumb disfunction of some kind). But I can cast a spinning or spincast reel adeptly all day.
Monofilament nylon fishing line, while a boon because of its invisibility, was also a nemesis for spinning reel fishermen. Even if you did everything right when putting the line on the reel, at some point in your fishing season the line explodes off the reel, knotting itself into a massive tangle that can only be fixed with nail clippers or scissors and a new spool of line. But a spinning reel with one of today’s superlines made of Spectra is a tangle-free, long-casting, long-wearing, problem-free machine.
Superlines cast like a dream and have incredible sensitivity because they don’t stretch and have no memory. They also practically never wear out. You can add a mono leader if you really believe you need less line visibility.
Spinning reels were invented about the time I was born, and Spectra lines are -- what? -- are decade or so old now. And now there are no-knot hooks.