Can I ask where you take these overall sales figures from? Not that I dispute them, just curious where they come from.
Surprised about the Super Spades - they struck me as brutal, with rank barbs, but that was a long time ago.
Eyed or spade?
- Thread starter Regalis
- Start date
Can I ask where you take these overall sales figures from? Not that I dispute them, just curious where they come from.
Surprised about the Super Spades - they struck me as brutal, with rank barbs, but that was a long time ago.
Thanks for this post and for your earlier one about manufacturing. Its pretty much what I have been saying since my first post but you know a lot more about the finer details of it than me.
Good stuff
I pretty much always use eyed hooks and a grinner. (Although for some unknown reason I use a palomar for dropshotting!). I can tie Spade ends by hand (that is how I started back when there were fewer eyed patterns and they were typically a bit more agricultural) or with a hook tyer.
I don’t really fish for small silvers, so my go to is a Drennan micro-barb specimen mostly a 20 or 18.
I’m interested to see that people talk of spade ends hanging better. Does anyone have any photographic proof of this?
I’ve never had any problems with the way mine hangs…..
I don’t really fish for small silvers, so my go to is a Drennan micro-barb specimen mostly a 20 or 18.
I’m interested to see that people talk of spade ends hanging better. Does anyone have any photographic proof of this?
I’ve never had any problems with the way mine hangs…..
Surely there is a massive hole in the market? Gamakatsu made (no longer available) a good fine wire eyed hook in sizes 18 to 12, the GP106. If there is a similar hook available I can't find it!? There are loads of barbless spade end varieties - are we just being led by the manufacturers. Micro barbed hooks rule ok and as for spade ends "hanging better" - not so!
sam vimes
Well-known member
You can't give proof of something which is entirely subjective. Some people believe that spades "hang" better, others don't. That's the end of it. As long as people are happy with whatever choices they make, that's all that matters. The only sensible way to form your own opinion is to try for yourself. However, unless you are using smaller hooks and baits, there's probably little point in anyone even trying spade end hooks. Even those that do like spades will only use them in specific circumstances. If they fish in ways that suit an eyed hook better, that's what they'll use.
These debates usually end up as rational as curry lovers arguing with folks that say that they don't like curries. It really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
Absolutely. People invest in their opinions and defend them gymnastically. Telling someone the gear that performs perfectly well for them is wrong is just silly. It would be a different matter if they can't hook fish, keep them on the hook or tie a knot that holds.
steve2
Well-known member
With all these type of what's best posts you will never get an answer. But they do make for interesting posts and it's good for us to talk even if we don't always agree.
Ok I'll bite. A size 20 or 22 eyed I imagine would get in a caster without busting it Rob.
Whats your point here ? ...because at the cherry picked sweet spot of size 16 spades could be fractionally easier to get in one very specific type of bait so therefore eyed hooks are inferior ?
Also just to point out, the very specific case of casters and size 16 & 18 was already agknowledged way before you first mentioned it. I suggest you look back.
Whats your point here ? ...because at the cherry picked sweet spot of size 16 spades could be fractionally easier to get in one very specific type of bait so therefore eyed hooks are inferior ?
Also just to point out, the very specific case of casters and size 16 & 18 was already agknowledged way before you first mentioned it. I suggest you look back.
My point is that every eyed hook I've ever seen can't be buried inside a caster like a spade-end hook can be, where only the line emerges from the shell. The eye makes too big a hole in the caster shell such that the hook slides out unless the point pierces the side of the caster as well. That's one reason why when caster was winning matches on the Trent, Avon and Severn, everybody fishing the float used spade-ends, the other being the extra weight of the eyed-hook caused the hook bait to sink so much faster than the loosed feed.
Yes I agree with your point about the hole & I agknowledged the point about casters in my very first post.
Ultimatly I think this is going to loop back to the cycle of there being less choice of small fine wired eyed hooks. Imo if all the hooks were available in both spades and eyes at the same price then I think spades would just slowly die away and disipear from tackle shops altogether.
Ultimatly I think this is going to loop back to the cycle of there being less choice of small fine wired eyed hooks. Imo if all the hooks were available in both spades and eyes at the same price then I think spades would just slowly die away and disipear from tackle shops altogether.
sam vimes
Well-known member
When spades are mostly used by a steadily ageing and decreasing demographic, I suspect that it's inevitable. Once the old school match/general coarse anglers are no more, I can't see who might buy spade end hooks. Eyed hooks will do just fine for most commie and carp/specialist anglers. The waifs and strays that are left with a spade end preference will likely have to make do with eyed or stock up while they can. I can see maggot farms going the way of the dodo too. They have already dwindled over the decades. I've not seen squatts offered for sale in at least ten years. Most tackle shops no longer turn their own casters. I even know of a tackle shop that stopped selling any live bait (maggot, caster and worms).
When I was a youngster eyed hooks where not considered serious tackle, at least in my bubble. This might be the main influence on my current preference (spades).
Apart from that: I don't think there would be a good alternative for my standard 'pole hook' the Gamakatsu LS-1310 and equivalents.
Apart from that: I don't think there would be a good alternative for my standard 'pole hook' the Gamakatsu LS-1310 and equivalents.
The Sogster
Well-known member
What a great thread I've been following this with huge interest.
Personally I started with spades as a kid in the early 70's and hated tying them. I then progressed to using eyed hooks because they were (for me) easier to tie and I never used less than a size 18 (I have never match fished) and specifically targeted bigger fish. There were also many books/ articles talking anecdotally about lines cutting on the spade.
Over the last 20 years I have returned to spade ends more and more for light line float fishing because I do think they hang better, even if it's just a visual/ confidence thing. There is no relatively bulky knot or eye which can be magnified/ create a shadow in clear water.
It's anecdotal but regardless of eye or spade wherever I have been fishing world over the local anglers always seem to prefer the snell or some type of whipping knot over the palomar etc for hooks whether eyed or spade.
Of course the snell and knotless knot are whipped around the shank does this make eyed hooks behave similarly to spades?
Perhaps the question should be, do hooks whipped down the shank generally outperform a knot tied to a loop?
Personally I started with spades as a kid in the early 70's and hated tying them. I then progressed to using eyed hooks because they were (for me) easier to tie and I never used less than a size 18 (I have never match fished) and specifically targeted bigger fish. There were also many books/ articles talking anecdotally about lines cutting on the spade.
Over the last 20 years I have returned to spade ends more and more for light line float fishing because I do think they hang better, even if it's just a visual/ confidence thing. There is no relatively bulky knot or eye which can be magnified/ create a shadow in clear water.
It's anecdotal but regardless of eye or spade wherever I have been fishing world over the local anglers always seem to prefer the snell or some type of whipping knot over the palomar etc for hooks whether eyed or spade.
Of course the snell and knotless knot are whipped around the shank does this make eyed hooks behave similarly to spades?
Perhaps the question should be, do hooks whipped down the shank generally outperform a knot tied to a loop?
The end of live bait in tackle shops? Certainly, it's only getting harder for bait farms to sell enough and exist within regulations. Perhaps it will come to places on the periphery sooner than places in the centre. I can buy maggots - including pinkies and squatts - and casters, from half a dozen shops within 15 mins of here.
It may be that demand for spade end hooks will shrink as angling turns to a simplified version of the sport in yet more of a carp-based monoculture, but that, if it happens, will be a result of the changing context, not of any superiority of eyed hooks for anglers who have no great need for hair rig presentation.
The future is not always a case of more of the same or progression in a straight line. Some of us will be old enough to remember when it was all sliced white bread and Double Diamond, the dietary equivalent of many of our commercials, but thankfully market forces include a distaste for such a dull diet and now we've an abundance and variety of good bread and beer.
It may be that demand for spade end hooks will shrink as angling turns to a simplified version of the sport in yet more of a carp-based monoculture, but that, if it happens, will be a result of the changing context, not of any superiority of eyed hooks for anglers who have no great need for hair rig presentation.
The future is not always a case of more of the same or progression in a straight line. Some of us will be old enough to remember when it was all sliced white bread and Double Diamond, the dietary equivalent of many of our commercials, but thankfully market forces include a distaste for such a dull diet and now we've an abundance and variety of good bread and beer.
Same could be said for Stick floats & Balsas. Many on here use them - including me. But overall the market has almost hardly any need for them. Back in the 70's and 80's sales were excellent. But you don't use Sticks on commercials. Ooops, I digress.
Not a digression - this tends to look like a "Which type of hook is best" thread, but is really about factors such as ease/cost of production, and demand led by changing fishing styles, and those are different matters. If ease/cost of production and market size are the criteria, game shows, soaps and reality tv are the best programmes.
I've just bought a few floats (big river jobs) for the second time, from Clive Branson. Smaller floats, I make myself. by and large.
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