While down in Orlando, FL for the big international tackle show (ICAST) in July, I was talking Ben Conley at Mustad about hook selection. In a nutshell, I mentioned how choosing the right hook could be as simple as grabbing one off the pegboard that looks to fit the bill, or quite complex if one chooses to look deeply into technological design.
“It all started with the classic hook which is just tried and true, cut the wire, there’s your point,” Conley said. “But from there we’ve developed Ultrapoint, and that’s when you step into that needle point where you’re actually going to fine-tune it, make sure you have a very sharp point,” said Conley, explaining Mustad transition to development of their Alphapoint line, hence the two colored packages in local shops.
“Alphapoint changed the whole way we thought about it, we tightened that angle, made it sharper, we elongated the point, made it ultra, ultra sharp, improved your penetration, you get much quicker hooksets,” Conley said, describing how going from an Ultrapoint to an Alphapoint basically changed the angle of the cone. All Mustad hooks are mechanically sharpened for durability and strength, but the development of each Mustad product selection comes down the angle of the point and the size of the wire.
“Ultrapoint is going to operate at a 26-degree angle, Alphapoint goes to a 21-degree angle,” said Conley, adding “We found that sweet spot for maintaining the durability but also increasing the sharpness.” Conley went on to explain how Mustad also changed the distance from the tip to the barb. “Ultrapoints we refer to as a 4.3…the distance from the tip to the barb is 4.3 times the diameter of the wire,” he said, while adding “You go into an Alphapoint we’re at 4.8.” You can see the difference when you put both hooks side by side, to which he said “It is a much longer taper which allows for a quicker, deeper hookset because it takes less force, because you’re not forcing as much wire into the fish.”
Now that we’re better armed with details about hook angle and point length in the Mustad lineup, it’s time to look at the latest development in the forging of the wire and something that Mustad calls Nor that’s being added to the Ultrapoint line, releasing Ultra Nor later this fall.
“When you forge a hook you’re going to reinforce it, you’re going to flatten that side, it will thicken up the wire a little bit, so you’re going to get a much stronger hookset,” said Conley. “Now with Ultra Nor we put a groove on the inside of that forging. It’s almost like an I-beam, so now we’re going to take a standard hook and we can increase its strength by about 20%,” he explained.
And for a relative layman like me who’s often just grabbed from the pegboard based on a guesstimate of size and shape, the takeaway is similar to the evolution to braid; increased strength with slightly smaller diameter. “It’s just designed for bigger fish,” Conley added. Just remember, green is Mustad Ultrapoint, red is Alphapoint, and the new Ultra Nor can help you stay buttoned up to bigger fish in the fall, and will be on pegboards at your local shop in October.
Look for my talk with Ben Conley about Mustad’s Ultra Nor in an upcoming eNews blast.
