The fly hook guide: wire, shank, bends and jig hooks

In fly fishing the hook is the skeleton of the fly. It sets how the fly sits, sinks and balances, and how much of it is left for the fish to see. This guide explains the main kinds of fly hook, in the order you are likely to meet them. It leans on a fly shop's classification and on the research on barbs; where only a shop or maker says something, we say so. See fly fishing in Texas for the fishing itself.

Dry fly, nymph, streamer, curved

Blue Quill Angler, a fly shop, describes the categories this way:

• Dry fly hooks are light, usually standard shank, straight or down eye and fine wire, so the fly stays on the surface. They are used for mayflies, caddis, midges and terrestrials.
• Nymph hooks are usually stronger and heavier than dry-fly hooks, with straight, curved or slightly extended shanks. Bead-head nymphs often use hooks with enough room behind the eye for the bead.
• Streamer hooks are larger and stronger, with longer shanks and wider gaps, for baitfish-style flies.
• Scud and curved hooks have curved shanks for larvae, pupae, emergers, scuds and other curved-bodied food.

The same shop lists wire weights as fine, standard, heavy, 1X heavy and 2X heavy: fine wire adds less weight for dry flies, and heavy wire sinks faster and handles more pressure. It lists shank lengths as standard, long, short and curved. Sizes work as for other hooks: smaller numbers are larger hooks, so a size 8 is bigger than a size 12, and common trout sizes run from about 8 to 24. Aught sizes such as 1/0 and 2/0 cover larger saltwater and streamer hooks. It notes that sizing varies a little between makers, and Wikipedia also says there is no international sizing standard.

Jig hooks

A jig hook has an angled eye. The shop says that with a slotted bead, the angled eye makes the fly ride with the hook point up. Anglers who nymph on the bottom of rocky rivers like that, because a point-up hook is less likely to catch the bottom. Makers and shops make strong claims about how much it cuts snags, but we found no independent test, so we do not give a number. Makers say the slot in a slotted bead lets the bead sit snugly against the angled eye and keep the fly in that position.

Barbs and the fish you let go

Blue Quill says a barbed hook can usually be made effectively barbless by flattening the barb with smooth-jaw pliers before fishing, that barbless hooks are easier to remove, and that local regulations may require them. TPWD's catch and release tips also say to mash down the barb. In the 2005 review of release-mortality studies, barbed hooks had marginally higher mortality than barbless ones, and the review cites work in which barbless jigs were easier to remove than barbed jigs. Those findings come from many fish and lures, not specifically from fly hooks. We did not find a test that shows barbless fly hooks penetrate faster, so we do not claim that.

Check the rules for your water. TPWD describes special rules on parts of the Guadalupe River, and the Outdoor Annual and the water's own rules decide what hooks and lures are legal.

Keep reading

• The wading fly angler's kit
• Fly fishing in Texas: where to start
• The freshwater hook guide

This is general information from the pages named below, on the dates shown. Hook codes and sizes differ between makers.

For more reading, we suggest these articles

• Blue Quill Angler (a fly shop): Understanding fly tying hooks (checked 2026-10-16)
• Wikipedia: Fish hook (parts, sizes and types) (checked 2026-10-16)
• Bartholomew & Bohnsack (2005), Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries 15: A review of catch-and-release angling mortality with implications for no-take reserves (checked 2026-10-16)
• TPWD: Catch & Release Tips (checked 2026-10-09)

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