This chapter is all about the end, the payoff end of your fishing gear. The hooks without which you cannot catch a fish, the sinkers for keeping your bait on the bottom when you’re after fish that like to feed way down there, the swivels that keep your line from twisting by taking up the shock of the saltwater currents, the snaps and the connecting links for easy interchange of them all, and the knots that you’ll have to learn how to tie no matter what Andy learned in the Cub Scouts and sister Peg learned in the Girl Scouts because they were taught with an old-fashioned material called rope and you’ll be working with monofilament.
What kind of hooks are you going to use? It depends on what kind of fish you are going to fish for. Every hook is fitted to some fish’s mouth. Small mouth, small gap; big mouth, big gap. Sharp teeth, long shank; no teeth or babylike teeth, short shank. Hard mouth, long bite with a sharp, long and narrow point for swift and sure penetration beyond the tough cartilage, where the hook will hold while you are fighting the fish.
Hooks come numbered according to size. Starting with Number 22, the smallest, and down to Number 1, then starting with 1/0 and on up to 20/0 which is the largest. For saltwater fish anything smaller than 10 is too small. Chapter 13, which tells how to go after each fish specifically, identifies the hooks to use by those numbers.
To read more, go to the Salt Water Fishing Secrets website by clicking on this link.