Hooked On Colours

I’m convinced that matching hook colours to baits and surroundings gains an important extra advantage.

- Dave Coster

Shades of bronze

Bronze is a good all-round colour for hooks, which is probably why so many patterns feature this hue.

In my experience, bronze works well with most popular baits such as maggots, casters, pellets, luncheon meat and worms.

It’s a colour that blends in well when float fishing or using feeder tackle. But there are various shades, so it can pay to use light bronze hooks when float fishing off bottom, and darker variations when presenting baits on the deck. My thinking here is that light bronze looks less obtrusive with suspended baits, while deep bronze blends in better over dark, silty terrain.

I’m generally not keen on hooks that stand out. They have the potential to flag up warning signs to fish, particularly bigger, wiser ones that have been caught before.

It’s worth dunking your end tackle in the margins at the start of a session, just to see how much or how little your hook stands out when attached to the bait that you are going to use.

Screening silver

Silver or nickel hooks are popular for baits such as bread, especially in punched form, where most of the hook is hidden inside the pellet of bread anyway.

Some anglers like this colour for hemp fishing, too, because the white shoots of the seed combat any brightness. On the downside, nickel hooks stand out alarmingly if you want to switch to using tares on the hook, a dark bait that only needs to be nicked lightly, leaving most of the hook visible.