Some fishing tackle is useful; some is not. Well-made rods are a big step up from a bankside stick. Reels — spinning, casting, spincast or fly — are a great advantage in line control rather than wrapping line around a Coke bottle. Rods and reels are very useful.
Many hook sharpeners, and all knot tyers are not useful.
And now, a new knot tyer is coming on the market. I hesitate to publicize it, so I won’t. Suffice it to say, it was invented in Finland, hit the European market this summer and, with any bad luck at all, will reach our shores eventually — with later better than sooner.
This thing looks like the offspring of a pruning clipper and can opener, presumably ties only one knot (according to the specs online) and costs more than a very good meal. Enjoy the very good meal instead.
Knot tyers have been around a long time, ranging from one that looked like a broken brass mechanical pencil that would tie a couple different knots to a plastic version that worked differently to achieve the same knotted end. Another looked like a miniature “Star Wars” robotic slingshot, designed to tie only blood knots. Several are only variations of tubes by which to tie nail knots for fastening a leader butt to a fly line.
Then there is the slim folded-metal tool that resembles a nail clipper, one that looks like a cigar cutter, and another that resembles a tire valve.
Come on folks, if you have a couple of fingers and a thumb on each hand, you have all you need to tie knots. (We can forget the Australian plait knot for the moment, since for me it always required both hands, a lot of patience and a door knob. Pretty knot, though.)
A good accessory for your fingers and thumbs is a good book, such as Lefty Kreh’s “Fishing Knots,” which covers basic knots and how to easily and correctly tie them. As Lefty says, learn to tie a few knots well, rather than a bunch of knots you will never use.
“And learn to tie them at home,” Kreh said. “On the water is not the place to learn knots.” Just keep those fingers and thumbs handy.
Hook sharpeners have been with us forever, perhaps since an early cave dweller pointed a forked-stick hook on a stone to more easily snag some finny food. Not necessary are all the variations that try to improve a simple sharpening task.
Some of the oddest sharpeners are battery operated, or those made with welded parallel round files. The battery-operated types usually make for a rounded point, which is not the best for sticking fish. One of these looked like an early battery-operated screwdriver, although a smaller version soon became available. Another looks like the result of mating a computer mouse with a plastic ocarina. The parallel-file types sharpen the outside of the point, which is not what you want.
The best hook sharpener is a flat file or stone. I like those from Diamond Machining Technology, available from most tackle shops in a number of configurations. These are flat to allow triangulating the hook by working both sides on the inside of the point and barb, then lightly touching up the outside to make a triangular cross-sectional hook point.
The belt sheath that holds my hook sharpeners on all trips includes two grit sizes of Diamond Machining Technology diamond files and the small Dr. Slick flat diamond file. However, all of these are too thick to get into the gap of any hook smaller about a size 2 or 4. For that, I carry a thin flat diamond coated fingernail file that can fit in small hook gaps. They are available in the cosmetics section of any drug or general wares store.
Be aware. The last time I was in the cosmetics section of a drug store to buy a new fingernail file hook sharpener and some fake plastic fingernails to tie redfish spoon flies, I got some funny looks.
C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting and the outdoors. He can be reached at [email protected].
