Hook Testing, ideas

Credit given to the people who posted on the Vision hooks thread for inspiring this idea; I want to test comparable octopus hooks for strength. Now how the hell do I do that? I could just test the wire, but I have a feeling that the differences in shape of the bend will have some affect. More than that, I am sure there are lots of variables I have not even begun to consider. Reminds me of a poem...


The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing


If I'm the only one genuinely interested in putting Gami, Vision, Owner, Brad's, Daichii, Eagle Claw Lazer, Mustad and others to the testing table...well I'll probably still do it. But if there's some genuine interest I might get it done sooner rather than later.

What say you all?

VHawk

No offense, but......"Why, Vince....Why?

Just one suggestion, Vince.

Standardize the hook size. One make's 3/0 is the same size as another's 4/0.

I think there may also be preferences for lighter wire or heavier wire octopus in the same hook size depending on the application.

Interested to see what you find, although I have an idea in my own mind which hook(s) might straighten/break easier.

Beyond sheer hook strength, another property to test is the resistance to curling of the hook point itself. I don't give a damn if I can straighten the hook by pulling too hard on a fish, but I can't even hook the bastage if the point is curled!

Same reason hunters zero in there rifles prior to hunting. Same reason guys spend hours playing around with different custom powder loads and measuring the difference of an inch at a 100 yards. Same reason that bowhunters can tell you the total weight of their arrow shaft and broadhead within the tolerance of a duck fart. Same reason that guys pattern their shotguns. To squeeze out every single extra bit of efficiency in order to increase success.

A day of salmon fishing can have direct costs of anywhere from $40 on the low end, to easily over $200 per day if your running a boat. If one considers opportunity costs, i.e. the chance to work overtime, a day just bank fishing can costs hundreds. If I'm throwing that kind of money around, I want to know that the terminal gear I'm using is reliable in quantifiable terms.


Not many other sports tolerate such huge variances in what the equipment manufacturers state in the marketing, and what is the truth. Imagine if they sold milk like they sell hooks and line. You could be getting anywhere from 2/3 a gallon, or 1 1/3 gallons in the jug marked 1 gal. Or it could be whole milk, 2%, or nonfat milk. You know how pissed I'd be to pay money for 2/3 gallon of nonfat milk? As pissed as I'd been if I had bought those vision siwash hooks.

OK, Brother! You know I'll read the results with interest, although I just don't see how you plan on dealing with the variables such as temper and shape, let alone sharpness, which, I believe, will be the ultimate driver.
Seems like a daunting task to me. Hats off for even considering it!

EDIT: Why doesn't somebody fix that damn "bowing" icon?? It comes up with "kiss my ass" instead. Been that way a long time now.

He's just bored...

Bring it on VHawk, I would be interested to see VMC's thrown in there too.

Vince,
I've done this a bit with different sizes and makes of circle hooks vis a vis halibut release studies. I would suggest you start by calling and talking to technicians at some of the hook manufacturers. Find their 800 numbers and spend a morning or two. They talk about "pull stength" which is the force required for the hook to start to deform. While manufacturers will give you a range for pull strength, a lot of the strength depends on the particular wire used during a run, as well as the annealing (?) process. While you may find some answers, the more you know, the less you will be able to clearly give a single number for any single hook.

And they have a cool machine that slowly increases pull until the hook deforms. Were goggles !

Personally, i think it's a good idea Vince.

Just like the "milk" analogy, I'm sure the hook manufacturers have done their own testing on their own products ...but have not tested across the board. I bet there has never been a "standardized" test established and applied to all brands. Obviously there are considerations in "standardizing" different brands to be compared (wire size vs. hook size, etc.), but you are quite the scientist and I have faith in your ability to adhere to the "scientific method"...

One further consideration: what if you unearth information which could be considered "damaging" to the PR and marketing of said hook manufacturers? Be warned that a roving "gang" of vision "sponsorees", complete with swag hoodies and stickered rigs, could be looking to sagotage your efforts...

Watch yer back dude...

I just ordered some Matzuo octopus hooks to try out. 2, 1/0, and 2/0. If you want some I should have them in a week or so.

If you could find out from each manufacturer where each one gets thier steel from and find out what alloy they use it'd be a cinch.

You wouldn't have to waste anytime testing.

With all the various materials, shapes, point designs...the variables are too many to test on a bench, IMHO.

With all the various applications they are put to, with different baits, attached to different lures, fished on different types of lines, and different pound tests of lines, the variables in the field are too many to test...

I'd say the best way to test the various octopus style hooks would be to get a few different types, sizes, colors, and materials, and go out and use 'em enough to come up with some useful numbers...

It really depends on when/where/how you fish as to what hook is the best, not on the intrinsic elements of the different hooks...I think.

Some are clearly junky in that the quality control is poor...sizing is variable, some are sharp, some are dull, some have good eyes, others are crappy...other types come out of the box almost all identical, which honestly is where I'd assign "good" or "bad"...at least I know what I'm going to get when I pull them out of the bag...it's up to me to know which ones to buy for what fishery and what application I'll be using them in.

Is a light hook that bends easily a problem? Well, I guess that depends...what are you using it for? Is a hook that will not bend no matter what you do to it the best? Maybe...depends what you are using it for...

A light wire bendy hook on 15 pound test line is going to be trouble for you...a heavy guage stiff hook on six pound test is also going to be trouble for you, as it'll sink your bait into the rocks as fast as putting on too much lead will.

I think your line tests were useful...especially the information about how strong a line will be in the future after it has been stressed...that kind of information is good to apply to almost all types of fishing situations.

I think it will be harder to find useful information in a hook test, beyond checking the quality control to see how consistent the hooks are over a bag of 100, and then describing the qualities, rather than rating them.

Fish on...

Todd

Microtuerus 101: has done this already he even used a hie powerd microscope to show the points sharpness. get hold of jason he can save you some time and has some great info on it.

Aix, thanks that was actually helpful. He didn't happen to post his results somewhere online?


Todd,

I can guarantee only one thing about doing this kind of testing, I'll know more after I've done it. I don't know what I might learn, what insights might be gained, what improvements or modifications might arise out of it, but I'll learn something. Actually I've already learned a bunch of stuff just doing the online research.

Some of your critique is useful however in narrowing down the variables. I'm not sure whether I'll do this or not. But the discussion has already given me some ideas.

Vince,

It will be interesting what results you come up with... Over the years I've fished nearly all the types of hooks known to man and to this day I'll always stick with the Owner Cutting Points.

Positive side, I've never had one break, they're tuff to dull, they have one of the largest barbs of all which you lose less fish because of, they have the perfect offset to penetrate easily and the quality control is nearly perfect...

Negative side, they're fairly expensive....

I'll be curious as to what your results entale.

Keith

I am a with kieth on this one, stated well to the tee! They don't staighten like gamies. my .02

Well, I agree about the cost of a single day of fishing. However I can say that I have never lost a fish to a hook bending . Or a hook breaking.

But I will admit to seeing hooks breaking on snags, hooks bending on snags.

I think if you use gamis or Owners you can't go wrong.

Personally, Vince I think you should take the time you are thinking of spending on this research. And use it to plan a bitcchen fishing trip. Just by gamis or owner hooks for the trip.
JY

I lost the biggest king I have hooked in my life from putting too much pressure on a 1/0 Gami and it bent out just enough to slide out of the fishes mouth. It was a river fish but it was big and chrome. I fought it for 40 minutes and had it 8 feet away from me. Mid 50's. I still use gami's though. -TBJ

Dude a 1/0 and a 50lb king. It was skill (luck) that kept that little hook it the fishes gaping maw for 40 min.
To bad it pulled, I have lost fish at the now or never point of battles. Sometimes its just never.
JY

I have landed many in the 30's and several in the low and upper 40's with single 1/0's, but I have lost more than I have landed thats for sure. Sorry for the hijack.-T

Vince,
I would appreciate any testing you can do on hook strengh, etc. I used the results of your line testing in Alaska a month ago and was pleased.

Keep up the good work!!

ClearCreek

With all due respect V-Hawk,

In more than 30 years of steelhead/salmon fishing I can't remember losing a fish to a broken or straightened hook so I guess I am having trouble understanding why you would do the test also. From my experience, any appropriately sized hook made by eagle claw, gami, mustad, and vmc, coupled with a properly set drag will land fish.

Have fun!

RM

Vince, I appreciate your passion for fishing. Obviously, some brands of hooks are pretty good and some are not as good. Most have already been named. If you are going to test hook strengths, I am looking forward to your post with the results.

I,m looking forward to see how those Gami compare........are they worth the price of $21.99 a box? Let us know Vince!

OMFG, this is some great stuff here, folks.........we've got a real genius on our hands here. I think I'm going to just start whorshipping this guy and give up any rational thinking whatsoever(insert extreme sarcasm here). Vhawk, please share some of those meds with us, so we can experience what it is like to be a genuine "know-it-all".

First of all, information is only as good as the source. If you have to ask "how", then you are not qualified to state "why". Anybody with a pliers and a half-ass grip can test hooks. Grab it, bend the hell out of it, feel the difference..........real rocket science, eh?

I'd be pretty pizzed off too if I got 2/3 of a gallon of milk that was marked 1 gal. because then I'd know that I was blind as a bat.

"Sorry, honey, I didn't realize that the milk was only 2/3 full and I was too gosh darn blind to look through the transparent container or I would have noticed. Hmmm, I'd better taste it before I return it. Yup, it's nonfat in the 2% container I tell ya......it's a conspiracy by the dairy farmers, I tell ya. I think I'm going back to the farm now and milk them cat teats, then I'll know exactly what I got".

Drinking milk is a sport? Read what you write and please write analogies that carry weight. "comparing apples to oranges".....we all know that one. Imagine the looks you would get talking about "comparing milk to hooks". Doyee factor of ten for sure!

Stop trying to be high and mighty.....well, if you are high, then that's ok, but please just stop the mighty part. Do you really need to use such big words on a fishing forum? You want something quantifiable? Ok, go away for a while and come back when you pass the MCATs, and get accepted to a "quantifiable" medical school.

I want to increase efficiency in my fishing abilities so I fish, fish and fish some more. Learn by doing, that's what I do, or do I do what I do by learning, doing what I learned all along?

Fishing tackle purchases are not based on whether you think you might be loosing some (speculated) income because of unreliable fishing gear......it's based on past experience and common sense. Certainly not based on hoity toity theories that wannabes pull out of their ass. If you buy a pack of hooks and it sucks, then don't buy them again. If you like them, continue to use them. So a hook breaks or bends, big fish lost, the "theory" behind why it happened doesn't need more than a little 30 second mental rewind, a 20 second review, and 10 more seconds of slapping your palm against your forhead saying "Doh! Doh! Doh!". Get over it, you are not a tournament fisherman, you are not a full-time guide, or in the tackle sales or manufacturing industry. If you are a weekend warrior, then it's just a fish or a fish story.....sucks, but it's not the end of the world.

No need to test hooks for sport, ok, Sport? Here is an example of potential income loss:

I've been using Trojan condoms for a long time. Broke a few, tried Lifestyles, broke them too. Thought about it for 60 seconds and then I tried Magnums and haven't broke one since. Avoided income loss with a 60 second thought. No testing, although it would have been fun to test every brand, but risky due to potential product failure because broken condoms could lead to pregnancy, pregnancey leads to child support, child support leads to decreased income, which leads to overtime, which leads to less fishing time and then I couldn't afford quality gear so I might buy somthing unreliable. Little bigger deal than a pack of potentially defective fishing hooks, right?


How about common sense? Got any? That's what I use and it didn't take long to realize that I was not buying defective condoms, I just trying to fit 1 1/3 gallons of milk in a 1 gal. jug..............now that's some quantifiable sh!t right there, ain't it?

Peace

[/quote]

Personally, Vince I think you should take the time you are thinking of spending on this research. And use it to plan a bitcchen fishing trip. Just by gamis or owner hooks for the trip.
JY
[/quote]

This is a rainy day project. Bitcchen fishing trips, and even chitty ones, won't be rescheduled just so I can bend open hooks. My memory isn't so bad that I've forgotten the OP can rain for week after week. Since the Republicans decided that online poker is the work of Satan, I've got to find other ways to occupy my time when it floods.

KidSauk,

I'm not advocating anything other than using the same degree of observation and record keeping that serious hunters already use.

You seem pretty angry. I reread my replies, and I'm not seeing anything that comes off as offensive. Nor did I personally attack any of the critics of the proposed project. If the subject of Vision hooks makes you this upset, maybe you should talk with a professional.

BTW, if you had tested your condoms prior to using them, you wouldn't have risked getting HIV several times over. Same as wanting to know which hook is less likely to fail, BEFORE someone loses the fish of a lifetime.

Tell Lupo I said "hi".

VHawk

I have found that brands are not always consistence in their tempering of the hooks once they are formed into hooks or when ever the hook's harness or flexibility is determined. I've had Gammies straighten out on me, e.g., size 6 hook on 12#test Vanish lost me a big fish when is went straight and let the fish off the hook. I'd think 12 Lb line should break before the hook straighten out. I've also had 3/0 Gammy loose their shape and release cohos.

"Over the years I've fished nearly all the types of hooks known to man and to this day I'll always stick with the Owner Cutting Points. "

I knew there was something I liked about Keith...ditto what he said...

The KidHawk debate is just getting rolling...where's the popcorn?

Fish on...

Todd

Go get 'em Vince!

Much like your line tests, I'll appreciate the work that went in to it and will look at the results, but will fully ignore them....because I'm confident and lazy.

I don't seem to have any problems fishing with Visions - either be it their hooks or swivels. Don't have any problems just fishing UG line, either.

I'll stick with what works for me.

I don't have much experience with the Vision hooks to make a judgement. Any comments on that brand is solely for the purposes of entertainment, and giving you a hard time. I do use their swivels, and find them for their size very reliable.

I have some preconceptions of what the study conclusions will find. They are similiar to what Todd has already stated, that varying conditions will preclude any single hook from meeting every need, or being defined as "best".



What I would like to know is exactly how much stronger one hook is versus another of the same gape size/shank length/style. Also how what the actual wire diameters are. How much strength does a thin wire hook lose versus a hook with 1x strength? What the pull strength is of the hooks in question, and will those numbers give some direction as to the appropriate strength line. As given in the example cited by Abu Loomis regarding the use of a #6 hook with 12 pound line. Lots of questions...

And finally, this thread will only get ugly if I let it. I always have the option to ignore bizzare rantings.

VHawk

anyone else sensing some defensiveness from the kid....?

...hmmm, methinks one doth protesteth too much.

Any business man that would knowingly allow inferior products onto the market does not deserve to be in business, period....and yes, the original owners acknowledged via a previous thread on this very same subject that there was a problem and they continued to supply the market with said inferior hooks.

IMO, the 'new owners' would be well served to change the name of the product line. There are a LOT of people out there that think Vision hooks are total garbage...IMO, they'd be well served to take every conceivable measure to change that perception if they ever plan on reclaiming their once formidable market share.

Word of mouth is a bitch ain't it?

My guess here Vince is that some people here know in advance what your testing will show and are trying to impune the results of those tests before you even do them. I personally hope you are able to follow through....

Eric

Agreed. Seemed a little out of character for The Kid.



Agreed. I never owned the company, so when you said "owners" above, please don't include me as one. If Joe or Justin made those acknowledgements, good for them.



Vision never had a formidable market share. While I do agree that the previous owner was not mean to be a businessman or run a business and damn near ran the company in to the ground and burned every bridge on the way out, I think over time, if the company has a good product to offer, it will survive and flourish.

If the products suck, than the company will die. They seem to be growing and doing well, so I don't think the products suck.

Most of Oregon didn't know what Visison was until now. It's becoming a very popular brand of hook/tackle brand down there. Obviously, a LOT of people are starting to use Visions, as their products do not suck.



Sometimes. I do like how you are forgetting the little part about how Vision offered to replace all the hooks you bought for any other product offered by Vision.

Good luck getting the same out of Owner or Gamikatsu (granted, I've never tried).



Really, it's probably the same people that don't care one way or the other and will continue to use the same hooks and swivels they are using now.

I'd be interested to see what Vince comes up with. Won't change my opinions of the different hooks.

Hate to say it, but MOST tackle failures are the direct result of the fisherman and their choices of terminal riggings than the tackle itself.

You flat out got screwed dude, and if I were you, I wouldn't trust Vision either.

Visions are just a part of my tackle arsenal. I use different hooks and swivels depending on what I am fishing for, where, and when.

I can attest to the tree thing

I'm with Parker on this! I guess if I only used 50 hooks a year I might change to Owner's, but at 3 times the cost it just doesn't add up for me. If the right hook is used with the right line, you will never bend one out on a fish. If they do get dull or bend out due to a hang up ,toss it and tie on a new one, pretty simple.

Vince your tests should be interesting!!

The Kid's Squawk makes me think of an old Hall and Oates song:

"You're out of touch...."
"I'm out of time!"

Abu-Loomis: " Your hook straightened because you were fishing a dinky little trout hook on 12 lb test."

The 12# test Vanish was being used as a 12" leader tied with dual (mooching style) size 6 hooks behind a gold Slim Willy with a worm as bait. I was fishing for Trout in Lake Desire. There's no reason except for a weak hook that it should straightened out.
I'll stick with Daiichi hooks for the most part and once-in-awhile I'll use Tru-turns.

VHawk -
Good luck with the testing - the results will be of some interest but I agree with Todd that hook strength is only part of the equation. Even in terms of hook strength such factors as brittleness or springness can negate over all strength. One of the worst hooks I ever used had many characteristics that one would look for in a hook but so brittle that fishiing them was an excerise in futility .

I found in terms of converting bites to fish to hand the strength of the hook ranks pretty far down the list of factors that are effecting my success rate. In the course of a year I very rarely stengthen a hook but miss lots of strikes and loss a fair number of fish. If a fine wire hook allows me to hook more fish or a hook with a more friendly fish holding shape reduces my lost rate either hook would likely out perform (in terms of fish to hand) a hook that never bends out.

As Todd points out the best "tests" for those factors are on water tests. I have too have tried a wide number of hook makes and styles usually in side by side test with a fishing partner or keeping track of "successes". As a result have developed some strong opinions on the "best" hook. The "best hook" changes quite a bit depending on the target species as well fishing method. A hook that preforms will for light line mooching may not be the best choice for heavy dute downrigger fishing.

I'm with you that have additional knowledge upon which to make gear choices is always a good thing. While the trust angler's expert opinion is always valuable sometimes our personal needs dictate a different option.

Tight lines
Curt

Ready to see the tests done on this one Vince. Piss on the "I say" aspect this thread took on earlier.

However... I like everyone else have an a$$hole and know what's I likes... Therefore won't be changing brands based on your results ! (rolly teeth yellow ball head here)

If this is going to be an "all encompassing" salmonid iron test, let me know where/who to send jig and siwash samples to.

Let the beaks mushroom, the bends and eyes break and good luck to you sir.

That Joe...always willing to help out. I'll be damned.

Fish on...

Todd

Uh, what did Joe just say? Could you translate that for us Todd??

Parker, that's one of the most coherent things I've heard out of Joe in long time...

He's telling KidSquawk to stick it, thinks Vince ought to do the test, is still going to use whatever he damn well pleases, no matter what the tests say, and is offerin' up some hooks, if'n siwashes or jig hooks will make it into the game.

The best ones are around the campfire when Williams is there...that Williams really brings out the...*best*...in Joe.

Fish on...

Todd

Thanks!

Only a lawyer could dicipher that

Has nothing to do with Vision, and sorry if my post seemed odd.....it was driven by frustration over people not realizing that information is only as good as the source. What qualifications does Vhawk have that make him a reliable hook tester? Some, if any at all. That's what pizzed me off. He didn't even know where to begin with the testing process and you guys are praising him as if he was Keith Archer testing a new egg cure. C'mon, folks, Vhawk is about as qualified to test hooks as I am qualified to test cancer patients. No matter what his results yield, they will be useless because he doesn't even know what hook components are (tine, throat, shank, etc.), metals used, tempering, annodizing, chemical sharpening, eye formation, plating, how the barb is cut, etc. I know more about this than he will ever know and you don't see me jumping in to volunteer........been there and done that.......it was very difficult to do starting from scratch and I'm a Mensa genius. Yes, I am, folks.

Besides, I'm trying to tell Vhawk that he needs to test himself before he starts trying to test tackle. Go study for the MCATs and be on your way to becoming a MD before you waste any more time trying to become Dr. Fisherman.

BTW, I am no longer with Vision. I use Vision hooks only because I have a stockpile. I am a Gammy/Owner man and I purchase quite a bit of them as of late. Daiichi is my favorite for fly and gear, but they cost big $$$ so I opt for 2nd best. Capiche?

Sorry, Vhawk, but you've got to put your time into the medical field and do your field testing on your time off. I am getting ready to drop out of the fishing social cirlce for a while after one hell of a summer because I am studing for an electrical 07 administrator test. I received a wake up call recently when a board member told me to put my time into school and/or studying for future degrees/certifications. That particular memeber showed me thier pay stub and my mouth dropped. He is in the same field as me, just hold the certification. Trying to pass along the same helpful hints, excuse me if I offended anybody, just my weird way of trying to help.

Peace
Justin
Kid Sauk tested, single mothers approved

Go get em Kid.

Even if the results were done by an engineer in a lab the results would only be accurate for the die lots and temper lots tested. It would be an error to assume all hooks of a given brand mirrored the test results, as shi% happens durring manufacturing at the factory, usually in the tempering process. Some hooks may cool too slow and subsequently become soft, while others may cool to fast and become brittle. Good quality control can minimize the bad ones that make it to the market place, but bad hooks happen. Your best bet is to know what you like and test a few out of the ones you buy with a pair of plyers. It ain't brain surgery.

Access to SEM would be mandatory for hook point testing. Anyone got one of those laying around ?? Just setting up +/- 3 sigma data control charts would be somewhat mind bending for those without the training, if they could come up with a conclusive set of values to measure in the first place.

Dr Phil? Is that you?

Oh no you don't. Don't even go there, no way in hell do I support Dr. Phil or any of his male Oprah-like teachings.

Sol and B-Run are speaking a familiar language... A little outerspace reference and we'd be reading from exactly the same book.

Kid,

Neither pomposity nor the pretense of genius make your arguments persuasive. I don't recall ever having an argument with someone who considers themselves intelligent, who ended an argument with an 'I have a big weiner' type statement.



I don't recall anyone convincing me not to research and test something I was interested in because I wasn't already proficient in that given area. In fact if people followed your advice and didn't question things that were outside their normal fields of study we'd be missing out on huge chunks of knowledge.

Kid, your arguments remind me of some of the reasons given why women shouldn't be allowed to vote, or go to college. Something about it not being their place to question stuff they don't already know about.

And now some back to the question of testing and specific points of contention...

Why would a scanning electron microscope (SEM) be MANDATORY for a reliable test of hook point durability? Wouldn't a test that measures penetration into a standardized medium before and after the hook point is subjected to a standard blunt force indirectly measure the durability of hook points? Or some simple "scratch" test also indirectly measure hook point durability?
There has to be dozens of different ways to indirectly measure hook sharpness and durability.

B-run,

I'm not a statistician, but I'll relearn what I think I'll need. A control chart, standard deviations, alpha and beta errors, and all the horsecrap from my stats classes are still lying dormant in my brain. Relearning stuff isn't a useless endeavor. My grandfather taught himself geometry and trig from college texts he bought at garage sales. I still think that is some cool sheet for an old guy to have done. So I'm not embarrased to admit I hope I'm half as curious about the world around me as he was, and as disciplined to follow through.


Sol,

How do I measure results from hooks I've bent with pliers? That's pretty subjective information.

And how much variability is there between die and temper lots of a given brand of hooks? Is the variability greater between lots than it is between different hook manufacturers?

I do agree however that there should be a simple way to measure pull strength that is doable at home, and is reproducible. It's not rocket science. And If a test is reproducible it shouldn't matter who does the testing, as long as the same procedures are followed. It is one of the hallmarks of a good experiment.

HalibutSteve,

Thanks for your info. I'll be asking about a process to measure pull strength at home when I call around later this week. I appreciate your help.

Thanks to everyone else who's offered advice and productive criticism.

VHawk

Just trust me Vhawk, after thousands of salmon and steelhead to the boat there's no question that Owner Cutting Points are the hook of choice.....

But do as you please and go through the steps of testing to tell me the same answer and results....

Keith

I hold the same prejudice in favor of Owner hooks.

Now all that's left is to find a way to measure pull strength. I'm on the look out of someone involved in materials testing to give me some useful input, or offer of help.

Do you know why cutting points are superior? Here's the math:

P=F/A

P=pressure (Pressure required for penitration)
F=Force (Force exerted on hookpoint by angler/rod/line)
A=area (Cross sectional area of point making contact with fish)

As "A" aproaches zero, "P" aproaches infinity, and there is not a substance known to man that can withstand infinate pressure without being penitrated, much less fleash and bone. With a cutting point the point of the hook is honed to a knife edge, making the "A" variable much closer to zero than is possible to achieve with a conical point hook.

Food for thought.

Ah yes grasshoppa! That why my wiener penetrate anything!

This has been a good read. If I bend out or break a hook it is usually my fault. Tips that bend or damage easily are annoying to say the least. I prefer a hook that has a durable tip and that breaks when I pull too hard on it, than one that bends and has a soft point.... I look forward to seeing what you come up with. G-luck.

Your wiener will penitrate anything because it's cross-sectional area approches zero?

Bummer, dude.

Hey now, it might be short but it sure is skinny!

Jebus Sol, in my past life I could swear we sat across the table from each other in an endless series of brain numbing meetings where some Poindexter rambled on about the width of a gap, or the angle of a slope while we sat there and wondered what that hot chick from QA looked like naked.

Standard replies when queried on subjects you have little or no interest in in a staff metting

1> Gentlemen , the way I see it, the less of these problems we have, the better off we will be.
2> I concur, however, we should move forward slowly until we have gathered more data
3> Lets work across departments on this one, for example, if you were walking in the woods, and you saw a really weird bird, and it freaked you out.. does that mean your the first person in the world thats ever seen this bird ?? lets not re-invent the wheel.

I watched a show on dawrfs the other night, and I can tell you that you that although the rest of your body may be minature you do have normal size lungs and liver.

Close, Sol.

A hook almost never hits a fish perpendicular to the axis of the hook point. The cutting edge of the Owners uses the force not in the direction of penetration to cut the fish and help the hook get to the point where the fish is pulling against the bend.

Here is a picture to help explain.



F is the overall hooksetting force. It can only be in the direction of the line connected to it as the line has no stiffness.

Fp is the penetrating force to which Sol refers.
FN is the force perpendicular to the penetrating force.

Since force has a magnitude and direction, FN > zero if F is not in the same direction as FP. A cutting hooks uses FN to cut into the fish. For a conical hook, FN just translates into resistance to hook penetration in the form of friction.

Any questions?

Just two

whats your proposed sample plan ?
what will you use as a nominal reference point ?

There, see how easy it is to be boss

You're not my boss. Those questions were lucid and relevant...

Seattle has too many engineers.
I'll stick with Keith on this one.

My greatest mentor once told me " I don't have to know sh!t, I need 20 guys working for me that know everything.. "

Actually, I did think of an interesting hook test. I don't think I've ever seen it reported. Tie a hook to a half ounce weight and drop it so that the point hooks into ballistics gellatin. Tape everything with high speed cameras. Then you cold see the dynamics of a hookset and quantify the forces.

I personally think the material properties and physical characteristics are very boring. The dynamics at hookset are where the intersting things happen.

"Just huck your [censored] out there, when it gets yanked....yank back! "

Well, it took four pages to get to the guts of the matter, but I believe that Stam has now done so...well done!

With the exception of minor tweaks and adjustments, I think it really is that simple most of the time.

Fish on...

Todd

A mentor of mine told me "The world needs ditch diggers, too." He didn't say anything about lawyers... probably 'cause he'd get sued.

K.I.S.S.= Keep It Simple Stam

Some of you folks think way too much

80 % of the time things really are that simple. The majority of of the paychecks generated in the engineering field are simply quantifying things that are already known.

I used to have a sign in my cube, it said " Confused ?? don't know what to do ?? join several others with the same problem.. go to a meeting "... below that I had a pic of a nuke mushroom cloud " Built by lazy illiterate Americans.. tested in Japan ".

I love the anti-engineer sentiment. Bring it! I've heard it all. I'll even start it off.

Why do some guys become engineers? Because they don't have the people-skills to be morticians.
----
Two engineering students are walking through the campus. One is pushing a bike. The other asks, "How'd you get that bike?"

The one pushing the bike responds, "I was walking here yesterday when a woman riding this bike rides up, throws off all her clothes, and tells me to take anything I want. I took the bike."

The other student nods in approval and says, "Good choice. Her clothes probably wouldn't fit you."
----
There were three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft engineer.

Suddenly, the car stops running and they pull off to the side of the road wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault may have occurred.

The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.

The Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, came up with a suggestion. "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, and open all the windows and see if it works?"

DiverX,


Overboard with those SOB's. Your OK in my book. And your chart and comment about the forces at work during the hookset got me thinking. Wouldn't a hook perform better, i.e. have superior penetration AND maintain the integrity of the hook bend (not open up) if the wire diameter would thicken where the stress is greatest during the fight?


Stam,

If all fish yanked when they bit and then rolled over on their backs like a cheap hooker (pun intended), I wouldn't be involved in this conversation.


Here's a link I've previously shared with Parker. I see there is a lot of little people interest. Maybe you could hook up.

Click the link
Midget Dating

An optimist says the glass is half full
A pessimist says the glass is half empty
An engineer says the glass is too big

Vince,
Does she fish?

As a surgeon who spends a good deal of my career purposely penetrating tissue, I'll vouch for the unsurpassed ability of cutting points to get the job done.

Conical points are a distinct disadvantage when it comes to facilitating penetration.

Thicker wire means bigger cross-sectional area, Vince, which minimizes the pressure and reduces penitration. Same reason it's easier to set a barbless hook over one with a barb. As the hook penitrates the area breaking the surface increases. You can read this shi% and still not understand the dynamics of what is happening. Think about it.

Vince,

No worries. I'm just yanking chains because I'm bored. These guys are easy to incite.

As for hook designs, the reason most hooks are simple, constant-diameter wire with a few simple bends is because it is easy and cheap to manufacture. More expensive big game hooks display the designs you suggested. Some have flat sides at the bend because they have been pressed to put material in the plane where the forces are applied and to harden the material. Actually, if you look at bone hooks, you can see where they have little material at the point and a lot at the bend as you suggested. Bone hooks are carved with a design derived from trial and error which would optimize over time without the considerations of mass production. Also since bone is more brittle than metal for the most part, a design failure means losing the time to make a hook and the fish, so it's probably a better design.

I love this crap.. I gotta step away !!! I wish I had something as interesting as hooks to study in my career. Field testing would have been mandatory with my boss picking up the tab. That would have been a real job !! I could have lived the life of Vedder.

Do you guys want to talk about Young's modulus and the stress/strain relationship for isotropic materials?

Talk about scared for life.

No way.. cool thing about that is after you take the test you will never be asked about again for the rest of your life.. " hopefully"

My strength of materials is rusty, but I can roll with ya, Sol.

We can break out the bending moments of inertia and start writing out the equations for bending while we're at it.

I got somethin' you can test for hardness and penetration riiiiiiiight here.

Classic.

Well, in the end you would need Duk Yong Kim ( phd, went to school for 3 more years than you dId and had a 4.0 GPA , never partied, has zero sense of humor and drives a Honda Accord even though he makes 120,000 a year) double check your work..

However, Edward Demming is a God to me.

Diver, had this conversation come up while we were fishing this summer only one of us would have made it back to the dock.

Hey, at least the dude (DiverX) is bang on with his grasp of the physics behind this issue.

That hurts my feelings. Here's the equation that shows how my feeling are hurt...

Time for this thread to evaporate.

Fp=Fcos(theta)

Please, God, make it stop.

Or the friquin granite grouper refusing to budge. That will straighten even a OWNER.

Seems to me this Owner cutting point didn't "cut loose" on ya, stam.



click here if pic does not display

It helps if you don't rip a vagina sized hole when you set the hook young man.

Must be somethin' in that Enumclaw water that stimulates animal attraction.

FNP, you just beat a bunch of us to that one..

Just barely....

Speaking from 45 years of fishing experience here the cost of the hook shouldn't matter when you are fishing just as the cost of the booze shouldn't matter when you are drinking. Buy the best you can afford of both. On a bad day of fishing and you hang up a lot you might be out $20 on hooks for a chance to catch a fish. Are you going to save $10 and risk not landing a fish due to cheap tackel? If you are fishing springers and you loose a fish due to a bad hook was it worth the money you saved? The cost of your tackel is usually little compared to everything else. Personal testing done while fishing puts Owner Cutting point at the top followed by Gamis in octopus style hooks. Gamis 510 are on all my plugs and most of my jigs are on Ganmi 2X. Vince have at it but I'll still use what I am using until something better comes along.

I wasn't clear when I wrote "Wouldn't a hook perform better, i.e. have superior penetration AND maintain the integrity of the hook bend (not open up) if the wire diameter would thicken where the stress is greatest during the fight? "

What I was asking was if the wire was of different diameter at different points, would it help the solve the problem of balancing penetration versus hook strength. The area of a hook bend where the deformation occurs seems to be far enough up the bend (say about midpoint of the hook bend, up to where it meets the shank) that any additional thickness shouldn't interfere with penetration.

I was following the discussion just fine. I just wanted to restate my question so it was clear.

I'm glad that not every thread gets as nasty as this one. The wife won't post on here because she's afraid to ask questions and then have someone call her stupid for asking. As it goes, my skin is not much thicker than hers.

VHawk

I can't recall her ever aksing a question and someone calling her stupid?
I think if you ask stupid questions, expect stupid responses.
If you ask good questions, expect good responses, and at least a couple stupid ones, at least here anyways That's the internet for ya....
I'd rather test the knowledge here over any other site, anyday.

Vince, you got skin like an Alligator. Never say otherwise. The vast majority of this B.S is just funnin ya, some food for thought is included along the way.

I wasn't rippin' on ya, Vince. I sat though many a class over at the UW thinking I knew what the prof was scratching on the chalk board only to find out at test time I had no fuc%ing idea what he was talking about. That's what I ment.

"What I was asking was if the wire was of different diameter at different points, would it help the solve the problem of balancing penetration versus hook strength. The area of a hook bend where the deformation occurs seems to be far enough up the bend (say about midpoint of the hook bend, up to where it meets the shank) that any additional thickness shouldn't interfere with penetration."

It might not interfere with the penetration, but it would surely just move the "weakest part" of the hook to another location...not remove it...

For instance, if the weakest point is on the bend of the hook, it may deform quite a bit before failing...if you remove that weak point, making say, the point the weakest link, it may actually fail sooner than if there were a weaker point on the bend.

Perhaps this is too obvious, but at what pounds of pull the hook fails at may not be nearly as important as where it finally fails...a flexing or bending hook bend may actually work to keep a fish hooked, whereas a stiff bend may actually cause the failure somewhere else on the hook...again, too many variables to test in the lab, IMHO.

Fish on...

Todd

WTF is the problem? I didn't know hooks made people so defensive.....

You weren't here to see the train-wreck-like "hook wars" and "jig wars" threads of years past.

Classic stuff.

This sh!t here is Girl Scout-grade.