| Pre-Historical Hooks | Metal
Hooks | Mustad Hooks |
 Literature
With the development of the printed book (Gutenberg
AD 1457), it became apparent that many people
of Northern Europe were keen on fishing for
leisure and sport. Books on the subject appeared
almost simultaneously in the Netherlands, France
and England, with Germany following not long
after, but it was in England that the interest
in angling first produced a flood of fishing
literature.
The first thorough treatment
of angling was printed in Westminster in 1496
as part of The Boke of St Albans, supposedly
written by a woman, Dame Juliana Berners, possibly
a prioress. In part of that book, The Treatyse
of Fyshinge wyth an Angle, she deals with the
art of making hooks. The best hooks are made
of needles, she says -- the finest darning needles
for small fish, embroidery needles for larger
fish, and tailor's and shoemaker's needles for
the very big fish. She tells us how to make steel
pliable, make a barb, shape and temper the steel
(three times heating until red-hot). She recommends
that the line be fastened to the inside of the
shank, a piece of advice that has been repeated
by many angling writers in modern times.
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For a long time
afterwards, English writers continued to describe
the making of hooks. The needles had to be of the
best steel from Toledo or Milan. The modern expert
will understand the advice given by William Lawson
at the beginning of the seventeenth century: "If
the steel is good, the point can never be too sharp,
meaning: 'If the steel is not of the best quality
the point may break if you make it too sharp'.
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Handmade hooks as reproduced in The Treatyse of Fyshinge ...
from 1496. The hooks are without an eye, a flat
(the 'spade') is hammered out in order to keep
the leader or the line from sliding off the shank. |
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There are interesting
items also in the oldest German book about fishing
(and hunting), Waidmeryk, which was published in
Frankfurt about 1531. The author recommends that
the line be made of white (yes white) horsehair.
The ancients knew better than many fishermen of our
time who look down into dark water and think that
a dark line is the least visible. They forget that
above the fish there is a sky just as light as the
one we landlubbers see above us. We should remember
that white is the protective colour of most fish
that expect to be attacked from underneath.
The classic book for sport fishermen, Isaac Walton's The
Complete Angler ..., came out in 1653. Most
of his wisdom and advice had been gleaned from
earlier English literature on the subject. Strangely
enough he did little fishing with flies. But
Walton writes like a true worshipper of nature
and goes through an impressively wide range of
the questions a sport fisherman ought to be familiar
with. Walton also tells the reader how to braid,
knot and prepare a horse's tail, in order to
make the best possible line. (Threads of silk
and vegetable fibre have been twined or spun,
but, from time immemorial, recreational fishermen
have recommended a horse's tail).
When it comes to making hooks, Isaac Walton does
an about-face. Instead of making hooks oneself,
he recommends that one goes to an experienced hook
maker. England's best he says, is to be found in
London: Charles Kirby in Harp Alley, Shoe Lane,
'the most exact and best Hook-maker this nation
affords.' From him we can follow the development
up to our own time. (Mustad Kirby Sea Hooks). |
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Hook
History