varivas 2200 bl hooks

[neilb]

been using these for a few weeks now and seem to be having trouble with them breaking. seems the ratio of the hook shank diameter to the gape is pretty high, hav had a few snap in the vice while tying, and a few more snap off on fish. anyone else suffered a similar issue.

[neil26]

i think i had one snap in the vice- size 16 i think. have not used them that much. seem very brittle- i remember snapping the eyes off a few trying to shape hook for an emerger pattern. now i dont try to do that! have had a good fish on a small buzzer pattern on sz 16 2200 without problems.

[bigbadtroutfisher]

I've had one break on me when hooking a fish! after that i replaced them.
Robert

[squeeks]

Me too, I think they are made of cheese!

[neilb]

good, thought it was a poor reflection of my tying abilities the fish i broke them off on were only 8-9 inch little browns...not a good endorsement

[emerger1981]

Originally Posted by neilb

been using these for a few weeks now and seem to be having trouble with them breaking. seems the ratio of the hook shank diameter to the gape is pretty high, hav had a few snap in the vice while tying, and a few more snap off on fish. anyone else suffered a similar issue.

did you get them off ebay by any chance?

[neilb]

nope, got them off lakelands.. there a little like sakuma manta's, very wide gape in relation to shank diamater. seems to cause a little too much leverage for the material to handle. pity because otherwise their a real nice hook to tie/fish with

[jonathan27]

Originally Posted by neilb

nope, got them off lakelands.. there a little like sakuma manta's, very wide gape in relation to shank diamater. seems to cause a little too much leverage for the material to handle. pity because otherwise their a real nice hook to tie/fish with

I use these hooks and had no such problems with sizes 10 to 22. How tight do you grip the hook in the vice? I've found that when tying patterns on light wire hooks i set the vice tension so that it just holds them so if i do have to over tighten the thread it doesn't fret or sress the hook but moves in the jaws. Maybe your hook breaks are down to damage in the vice causing a weak point?

Just a thought, stick with them they're excellent.

Jonathan

[wcb]

We sell 1000's of the Varivas 2200 hooks and we don't get much negative feedback on them at all.
For such a fine wire hook the seem to be quite strong and i have landed wild fish myself up to 3lb.
Of course you need to be careful when tying on them and when playing fish but this is the same for all 4x fine wire hooks.
T

[North Country Angler]

Interesting. Maybe there is a quality control issue - I have just viced a few different sizes of mine and tried to break them, and although I can distort them out of shape, they certainly don't break.

I use these hooks for a lot of my river dries, on tippet sizes 0.14mm down to 0.10mm and I have no probs at all. I landed three 2lb+ wild browns on the Eden on them the other night safe and sound. That said, I tied a few sussie buzzers on them for me Dad and they didn't stand up to bullying rainbows on an 8 weight outfit and 5lb flouro -they tended to open up a bit........but that's not really what they're for anyways so my mistake for using them in that application.

I love 'em, but I know there are one or two respected anglers who wouldn't give them the time of day. I reckon they perform best in conjunction with a fairly light tippet, forgiving actioned rod set up. It seems to me I bump an occasional fish off when using them with my XP, but the SLT eases the hook home every time. A case of horses for courses?

M