Back in September I wrote a blog post about my growing obsession with checking on the sharpness of my treble and single hooks. Nobody should be doing any kind of fishing with blunt hooks, but it wasn’t that long ago when I definitely wasn’t checking the points on my hooks regularly enough - and now because of the way I am made I am close to being obsessed with it. I have played around with various easy to use hook sharpeners and over a bit of time I came around to wanting one that was to hand whenever I was actually fishing. I didn’t want to be going back to my rucksack or scrabbling around in various jacket/wader/lure bag pockets etc.
For many years I have owned one of the brilliant Eze-Lap Diamond Hone and Stone in the fine grade (single one here, pack of three here, they are so good). Some time ago I started taking it out fishing and leaving it in my lure bag and over time it rusted up. I now own a second one which I keep at home and sharpen various hooks up when I think about it. But I want one with me when I am actually fishing, and because I work with Savage Gear I was able to get hold of one of their surprisingly large “Diamond Dust Hook File”. It works great as a hook sharpener which is by my side all the time, and as per the photo above I literally have it sitting on the shoulder strap of my lure bag. I learnt my lesson so now I attach a cheap coil-type zinger via some cable-ties to the actual hook sharpener and sheath (bin all the crappy clips and split-rings that come with these zingers and just use cable ties to secure them to things, I also use one of these zingers for my fish-grip etc.)
Over time with that Savage Gear Diamond Dust Hook File you might notice a few little spots of rust if you carry it like I do where it’s going to get hit with saltwater a fair bit, but I can live with this because it doesn’t seem to remotely affect how the thing works at sharpening my hooks. The actual sheath itself is perfunctory but could easily be better, and as a “sit by my side for when I need it” hook sharpening solution it works pretty well.
But that wasn’t really the point of this blog post on another cold December morning when I went out with Storm at 6.30am and I heard a bunch of different tawny owls calling away which is always rather glorious. Nope, my point of this blog post was that it’s all very well talking about keeping your hooks nice and sharp, but do you actually know the best way to use one of these simple sharpening tools to sharpen your hooks? Please bear in mind as well that I get some of the hooks I need via my work with Savage Gear, so you could argue that I could simply replace any hooks that felt a bit blunt. But I don’t like waste and I don’t believe in taking the piss. Just because I happen to be actually involved with the lure fishing hooks that I actively want to use doesn’t mean I am suddenly going to start being wasteful. I will always try to get as long out of all the different bits of fishing gear I use, regardless of whether I pay for or don’t pay for certain items.
Anyway, so a while back I did what I should have done a long time ago. I went on the resource that is YouTube and I asked how one should best sharpen a fishing hook. The simple video above was about the easiest to follow one I came across, and for the life of me I had no idea that you were meant to run the hook in that specific direction only to best sharpen the point on a hook. As with finding videos on the FG knot on YouTube many years ago now, I watched the video above and did what was suggested - sharpen my hooks exactly the same way - and it works! Logic might say to run the hook the opposite way to how he says to do so, but if I follow this video I end up with hook points that feel properly sharp again. Job done! You all have a good weekend, happy sharpening, catch you next week when I am hoping that the forecasted big shift in wind direction and sea conditions might kick start some winter bass fishing around here again……….
Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.