More hook ramblings...
Eagle claw use to make a very good SS treble hook as well. I bought a box or two of 100 a long time ago and still have a few left. I have not seen them for sale in years and have lost the box and the hook number. They were expensive but held up. I only snapped one of them. The eyes were closed. I use to used them as replacements on the Gibbs swimmer plugs which had very poor hooks at the time. a 20#er would strighten them out easy using mono line. The EC SS treble hooks caught A LOT of fish for me.
I know a lot of guys don't like stainless...and they have good reasons.
A) they will snap before they bend very much
B) they will not rust out in a fishes mouth as fast.
C) expensive
D) hard to sharpen
E) Get one thru your hand (or worse) and you have real problems unless you have a good bolt cutter on board.
All that said, it takes A LOT more to bring them to the breaking point then bending a standard hook and they don't rust. And until cheaper and pretty darn strong VMC's came out that was the way I went. I hate seeing a plug come back with the hooks straightened. I would rather loose the entire rig...but that is just me.
the standard VMCs are pretty good, they will open up a little but not all the way I have found...they will break too if you force them. The 6X must be awesome I have never tried them but look forward to,**For the money** these are probably the way most serious fisherman should go IMO.VMC I think has found the right quality/$ in a hook. A little more corrsion improvements and they could dominate the hook market. Too bad they are French made..
I still like having a good supply of SS hooks in my box and on several plugs.
I have one plug that I made that is 100% stainless steel. It is a small SS pipe that I have HD SS split rings and SS small double tuna hooks. When a bluefish bites this he breaks his frigging teeth off. The hardest thing was drilling thru the pipe.
But as I said, the best thing about SS hooks is that the hackle and bucktail always look nice and they can take abuse with a pair of pliers.
That is the first time I have seen the EC 208ss I will try them. I have been using the mustads SS with pretty good success
BTW, does anyone even make a SS treble anymore?
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