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3. Fruit fly hook, Page 2

Thanks for the idea, Louis. I may look into that. I made some more modifications (subtle, but important) to the tweezers, and I think they may now do the job. I'll post pics a little later tonight.

Pics of the tweezers now up.

There's a little channel exactly the width of the free jaw which allows them to close without the jaws twisting out of alignment. The free jaw is tapered toward the tip but flat. The fixed jaw is the one I use for shaping the hook eye and bend and is completely round. I may develop tweezers with more interesting cross-sectional shapes for making more stylized bends, but that's for later. Currently I use the very tip for the eye (even then the eyes turn out too large, and I end up having to crimp them closed a little more to get them to an acceptable size), and for the bend I just work farther up on the jaw.

Before adding the epoxy, the curvature of the two jaws was matched perfectly. I'm not sure if that is still the case, although they seem to close well. When the epoxy was semi-hard, I pressed the jaws together and developed a tiny indentation in the little drop at the tip of the free jaw which I hope will help hold the hook well and also help in the curving process.

The fixed jaw tapers to a very fine tip, but the hooks kept slipping off it. So I used a small hammer and tapped a very small kink in the end, then dabbed a very small bit of epoxy over it to keep it from scarring the gold.

So far I'm pretty pleased with them, but we'll see how they perform after the latest modifications. The hooks will only be as good as the tools used to make them. The tweezers are pretty important for me to get right.

-Shawn

Shawn,

glanced at a real ruler today for some reason, and realized just how small a millimeter is. in your pictures the ruler gets magnified too.

wow...that is reeeeeely teeeeeeeny!

it's just as well you're working smaller--gold prices are up again!

Yeah, they're pretty small. I keep them in a large zip-lock bag to make sure I know where they are. Amazingly, I haven't lost any yet (although, ironically, I lost the size-26 hook I was comparing them to - wife found it in her hand a few days later - oops - sorry, honey). I'll bring some to the Somerset shows for you to see.

Yeah, I just bought some more gold, and it's almost as much as platinum now. I wish I'd invested in it 8 years ago at $300/oz. Hard to imagine doing much better during that time with another investment. Plus, it looks a lot cooler than a piece of paper.

-Shawn

As aside what do you guys feel is the smallest practical hook,in terms of fishing?

I generally don't fish much under 20, save for trikes.

I have some size 30 hooks that I've used for teeny-tiny creme midges, and I tie some trikes down to size 28 for end of the season fish that have seen it all and won't look at much of anything besides naturals or flies smaller than the naturals. I've caught some fish on these flies, and with the Tiemco 518 or Varivas Ultra Midge 2300 you have strong fine wire and very wide gape so they hook very well. Most of the fish I've caught on these hooks have been smallish, but it's sometimes fun to have something that works when nothing else will.

as most of you know, i am a small fly troutnut. i believe that louis is creeping out of the closet as well! years ago, i tied and fished #32 94840 on 0.75 pound test 8x but no longer do. that is ridiculous! i don't tie or fish below a tmc2488 size 30 anymore!
and i have caught wild trout up to 19 inches on this hook with a simple cdc midge in a famous spring creek (on 10x varivas super tippet - 1.37 lb. test) in under 2 minutes.
go for it shawn.
i have found some really thin nylon in my kids toys to knot to that hook...
gut

Size 30 2488 is a size 34 shank right?

i think it might be a 33

You guys are the crazy ones. I just make really small hooks; I'm not nuts enough to fish with them. Jonathon was wondering how people make and tie on really small hooks, but you guys must have some real eagle eyes to see those things at the end of a 30-foot cast. Size 22 is the smallest I typically fish, though Louis has me now tying up 26es for reasons that are still unclear to me.

I will rely on you guys with more experience sizing small hooks to tell me what size the ones I'm making are. I know there is a ton of variation from manufacturer to manufacturer and from style to style, but it would be nice to have a ballpark size. My micrometer is good enough for me, but others might like to know how big they are in conventional sizes.

I am making slow progress - a few more failed but encouraging attempts tonight. I made a pretty crappy one that was 1.25 mm long. I won't stop until I've gotten down to 1.00 mm. And I worry I might not stop then. A small yet slippery slope, this.

-Shawn

Yes, I am a fan of the small fly, Tony. And Shawn, whatever he says, is getting curious. Enrico Puglisi makes some very strong fine tippet that I like for fishing the tiny stuff. 7X is 3.4 lb. test 8X is 2.1 lb. test (http://www.waterstrider.com/fishing-gear.htm). I have some of the Varivas tippet, but have only used it a time or two so far. Some will raise hackles at light tippets, but with the right rod and technique bigger fish can be landed quickly' I haven't landed any 19" on my small stuff, but some in the mid-teens. We'll have to hit the Trikes next season, if you're game. Or midges sooner. I'd enjoy sharing some fly patterns and ideas.

"." Hey guys! Do you see that dot? Let's call it a no-see-um...Get to it Shawnny! :)

I just read the last dozen or so posts here and I'm laughing my ass off! You guys are a hoot! But you know I love you small fly guys...This is probably the only form of extremism I can tolerate. But a couple of you may need some help and Shawn...You "are" on a slippery slope!

"Good evening everyone." A chorus of hello's are heard back. "My name is Tony, or Louis, or Shawn and I'm a small-fly-aholic. It all started several years ago, during a Pseudocleon anoka hatch...We called them that back then...Before the fall!..."

I think I heard my cell phone ringing...It's from Pennsylvania...Oh shit! It's Tony...He's threatening me with a size 26 Vincent Marinaro hook from Partridge of Redditch...I'm shaking in my waders, man!

Spence

I just had a colleague at my school come by my room and blow my mind (OK, perhaps not noteworthy per se - but it is the way he blew my mind that is worth sharing). He was dismantling some donated equipment that is used for making custom integrated circuits. Apparently, they use gold wire for the circuitry (easy to understand because of its electrical properties and resistance to oxidation), and the machinery had a small coil of gold wire (probably 24-karat - I'll have to do some research to find out for sure) left on it. I haven't measured it, but this wire is by far the finest I have ever seen, on the order of a human hair (20 microns, perhaps?). Anyway, he gave it to me. I am both excited and afraid of where this might lead.

-Shawn

Just measured the wire - 33 microns thick. I'm going to go insane(r?).

-Shawn

Shawn,

Is it at the point that we should be sending someone, say a psychologist, to the house?!

Sawyer's original nymph called for some of the other wire that may have been part of that equipment your friend was taking apart...The copper stuff. There is a black-and-white YouTube out there somewhere without sound showing him tying up one...We all run out to the local fly shop and pay big bucks for fancied up wire and it's really all around us...Maybe not in bright olive or hot pink, but....

Sounds like you are in business there mister!

Spence

Ha! Now that's fun.

Yes, fun indeed. I just found out that they make this stuff down to 12 microns. Research continues. Hopefully on the other side of all this I find some other, heretofore undiscovered, version of sanity.

-Shawn