Do you sharpen yours or just use em right out of the box. I sharpen all my hooks usually with a fine file(Luhr Jensen) and at times following that up with a hard polishing stone if I'm at home pre-tying (overkill maybe). On the water I just file them as they become dull.I know there are some sharp hooks out there but I haven't found one(gamis and others) that at the least I didn't touch it up with a stone. I'm going to sit down and start pre-tying tonight, time for the old thumbnail to take beating again.

Gami's are great right out of the box, but they're not designed to be re-sharpened (alot of hooks are made that way today).

I've been using Owner hooks alot lately and have been very impresssed with them

I kind of do both...

First, the great majority of my steelhead fishing is done with pretty small hooks, 1's, 2's, and 4's, and I pretty much use Owner Cutting Points.

They are awfully sharp out of the box...really, really sharp.

Due to the unique shape of the cutting point, with three sharp edges, I'm afraid that touching them up with a sharpener would do more damage than good.

I use them out of the box, and every time I get hung up, or every ten or fifteen minutes, even if I don't feel that I was hung up, I check the hook. If it's not still really sharp, I replace it.

With all the other money I spend on fishing gear, gas, etc., I don't find burning five bucks worth of hooks in a day of fishing to be cost prohibitive.

Salmon fishing, I generally use either Owner needle points, or Gamakatsu Octopus hooks. Both of those are easy to sharpen, so I sharpen those whenever the need arises.

Fishing for chums, or chinook, or silvers in bigger water, I'm usually using 1/0 or 2/0 hooks, and those are much easy for my egg gooped, hook poked, knife slashed, tooth torn fingers to sharpen.

Now that I think about it, I think there's a bit of a cost/benefit analysis going on...when I'm fishing for chums, and I'm expecting to hook twenty or thirty in a day, I'm not too worried about losing one due to a not so perfect hook point. Same with silvers when they are really in and on the bite.

Steelhead fishing, on the other hand, especially in some of the smaller, lesser known streams I like to fish, one or two fish is the difference between a skunk and a very succesful day, so hooks are checked and changed much more frequently.

It also depends on how I'm fishing. If I'm drifting eggs, then I'm dragging the bottom a lot more, even if I'm not getting hung up more (which I generally am). The hooks get checked and changed a lot more then.

If I'm fishing a float and eggs, if I'm doing it right, then my bait and hook rarely touches anything other than a fish's mouth, so I don't check or change them as often...only after fish and snags. Fishing jigs is the same, if I'm not getting hung up much, then I don't even bother unless I get hung up or hook a fish. Since they can't be replaced without replacing the entire jig, they get sharpened.

On lures, especially spoons, I check the hooks very frequently, and sharpen those a lot. Big single siwashes are about the easiest to sharpen, especially if they are barbless, and harder to easily replace, so they get the business end of the hook sharpener.

Single hooks on plugs are always rigged with point up, so they don't get too beat up. They're easy to sharpen, though, so they get checked every time the rods come in, and sharpened if they need it.

Fish on...

Todd

Here's what I think....

Save your thumbnail the beating, stlhdfishn. Just use the yellow handle of your hook file to check those points. Believe me, if it sticks on the hook file handle, it will stick in your thumbnail just as well. This is especially helpful if you like to wear latex gloves while fishing.... no need to put pin-leaks in your gloves.

Todd, I also use smaller hooks while drift fishing I'll give those Owner cutting points a try don't know if I will be able to refrain from trying to sharpen them though :p old habits are hard to break

FNP,

Being an eye doc, I'm sure that the needles you use at work are cutting point needles...how do they stack up to regular needle points, and what do you think about their ability to be sharpened?

Maybe more precisely, can a hack with a sharpener (like me) sharpen them without messing them up?

Fish on...

Todd

FNP, Theres no handle on my file just surgical tubing and a snap hook besides thumbnails had to been put there for a reason fisherman to check hooks with, carpenters to smash with their hammers I don't often use latex gloves (I do have them in with my gear though) my eggs usually are thickly coated in borax so hopefully some or all of my scent is washed off when they hit the water.

Todd, here's one of my old posts I dug up on the same topic:

As a guy who deals with surgical needles on a regular basis, I can tell you that a surgeon would almost never suture tissue with anything other than a cutting point, unless the goal is to ensure that the suture tract is watertight ( vascular micro-surgery, glaucoma micro-surgery). A cutting needle penetrates tissue with incredible ease compared to a conical tapered needle.... it's like night and day.

The same goes for fishing hooks.... cutting points just penetrate better. That said, I have not converted to Owner hooks because of what others have already alluded to..... exorbitant prices for small quantities. Besides, I have done well with Gamakatsu's all these years. Happy to see there is bulk pricing available on the Owners.. Bad news is my timing is way off.... just placed an order for bulk Gamakatsu's before reading this post. Oh well, next time around.

Sharpening an Owner cutting point is voodoo... probably just ruin the hook. Trying to duplicate the intricate cutting configuration on an Owner would be impossible with a hook file alone... you would need a micro-machinist to do that.

That said, creating even just ONE cutting edge helps tissue penetration tremendously when compared to a conical point. That's what I strive for when sharpening Gami's.... removing as little metal as possible to create one clean cutting edge on the inside aspect of the hookpoint.

That's what I thought...now I don't have to feel lazy when I don't do it!

Thanks for the information.

Fish on...

Todd

FNP, What method do you use when sharpening gamis for instance just the face of the hook or each side and then the face interesting info thanks (reminds me of this guy that sharpened chainsaw chains with a flat file instead of a round one there was no way I could even come close to getting my chain as sharp as he could I tried it once(using flat file) ended up ruining a good chain)

had to reread your post now I get what your doing thanks posting for that

stlhdfishn, try this link:

sharpening hooks

F N P and Todd

Thanks for the info,just got home from Sportsman's warehouse. Picked up a package of 9 of the owner hooks for 2.89+tax. They are a little expensive, I wanted to check them out first before I bought any bulk packs. If I remember right they were getting 14.00 dollars for packages of a 100. Nice looking hooks checking them out under my fly lights magnifying lens, I see what you mean about being disposable(non sharpening) and these are the sharpest hooks I have seen out of the box(package) thanks again for the info

While I use everything from Daiichi to Gamakatsu to Mustad's new UltraPoint hooks, the Owner cutting points are great for those situations where your hookset may not be the best-- such as on those days where you only get one bite a day, and that appears while you're pouring coffee or daydreaming about a hot sandwich on the way home.

Here's the reason I say that. I was fishing for kings in the PA area just after the cutting points came out. We found the fish deep that year, and I was mooching just above the bottom in 400 feet of water. I stuck two kings, both on Owner hooks. On one fish, the hook penetrated the jaw hinge-- it didn't go behind the hinge but through it. If you think about the force I could apply: 400 feet of water (with more mono than that out since I was fishing about a 30 degree angle), monofilament main line (with a stretch factor of roughly 20 percent), then I probably set the hook like a four-year old. But that hook stuck in the hinge, and the force of the fight drove it the rest of the way through. To me, that's a sharp hook, and the cutting point philosophy was proven.

I still fish a lot of different hook styles and think wire diameter plays a big part in successfully sticking fish, but then that one king makes me think twice on some occasions.

Keith

WOW Keith!

I think you just made the best argument for using Owners for long-line fishing a float and eggs. You know the scenario, letting the float go another 20 yards down that otherwise inaccessible sweet spot where you can barely still see the bobber go down. It's so far downriver that when you finally get that hit, your hookset is no more effective in driving steel than the upward resistance of the float itself going under.

Bought my first set of Owner hooks after reading FNPs post a while back on them. These hooks are impressive. I stuck myself a bunch of times just tying up leaders for Salmon Fishing. Unfortuneately all I can say so far is that they are great at spearing shakers. I am going to tie up some this weekend for Steelheading. I think I will wear my Kevlar gloves while tying this time.

Owner Cutting Point hooks rock. They are theeee best octopus style hook available today---hands down: The line drag alone between a receptive fish and your rod tip is enough to drive these hooks home (almost).

Ditto, on the concensus of opinion: Don't sharpen octopus style hooks, just tie on new ones. Hook files are for sywash style hooks.

I wish I hadn't lost my precious hand lens. It was as good or better than my eyes at determining how sharp a hook was. Sometimes I'd look at a "sharp" hook and be amazed at how dull it actually was. When I sharpened such hooks with a file, boy were they sharp. All I gotta say is, get a hold of a magnifying glass and be amazed.

By the way, I don't recommend using the fingernail test. Just don't see the need to ruin the nice sharpening job you did on the hook, esp when sharpening finer wire hooks.

I usually just use a Luhr-Jensen flat file for most hooks and a hook honing stone for either detail work, touch ups or small/fine wire hooks .