Reusing Old Fish Hooks

Size 4 hook

Before I started carp fishing I didn't really worry a great deal about the hooks I used to catch bluegill, bass and crappie. But fishing for carp is a different story. Sharp hooks are a basic necessity to increase success rates for landing big, bad carp in the net.

I use braided line and when it starts to fray a little I replace it. The line below the swivel down to the hair rig always frays first. The reasons are obvious - the rig drags along the bottom of the lake or river on the retrieve, scrapping against rocks and debris along the way. So early on in my carp fishing exploits, I started replacing old hooks nearly every or every other fishing trip.

Today I found a stash of old hooks in my tackle box. I checked them for sharpness and decided to re-tie some of them (the sharper ones of course).

I'm heading down to Sterling State Park tomorrow, so I might get a chance to try some of them out. If re-using old hooks turns out to be a bad idea, I'll write about it in a future post.