Fishing Hooks Shopping Guide

This guide assumes you already have a general idea of what type of hook you want. If you need to learn about hook types our page has you covered. This guide will help you track down the hook you want from a specific brand.

When buying hooks in person you have the advantage of being able to physically confirm the size of the hook. Since hook sizes are not standardized, buying online carries the risk of purchasing an undesirably sized hook. One way to confirm the actual size virtually is to take advantage of PDF catalogs from the hook companies. An ordinary bitmap image like a jpeg is not tied to any size in the real world, it is just denoted in pixels. PDF files on the other hand are tied to real sizes of actual printable documents. Therefore, if you use a PDF reader in "actual size" zoom mode the size of the hook on your screen will be the same size as in real life.

Another thing to consider is whether or not you can order directly from the manufacturer or not. The manufacturers tend to have the most sizes, finishes, and pack counts of hooks available. It can be super frustrating to have your exact hook size dialed in, only to find it out-of-stock at the shop. If you like tying your own rigs or snells you can often get cheaper value packs of hooks that might not be sold in stores.

Finally, you might consider what country the hook was manufactured in. Hook companies can be cagey about the details of their manufacturing process. Some just mention global manufacturing, which typically means a low-cost country such as China. Below is a best-effort guess based on publicly available information.

Brand	Made in	PDF sizes	Buy direct
Eagle Claw	USA	Yes	Yes
Mustad	Norway + Global	Yes	Yes
Daiichi	Japan + Global	Yes	Yes
Owner	Japan + Global	No	Yes
Gamakatsu	Japan + Global	Yes	Yes
VMC	France	Yes	Yes
BKK	China	Yes	Yes*
Tiemco / TMC	Japan	Yes**	No
Hayabusa USA	Japan	Yes	Yes
Hayabusa Global	Japan	Yes	No
Vanfook	Japan	No	Yes
Decoy	Japan	Yes	Yes

*Note that BKK sells hooks but through Amazon, make sure the hook you want is actually sold by the BKK account on the Amazon store page.

**Note that while Tiemco has a PDF catalog it seems like the actual size feature is set to wrong page size so you will have to manually adjust zoom.

Hook Brands That Don't Manufacture Hooks

Brand	PDF sizes	Buy direct
Ahrex	No*	No
Umpqua	No	No
Partridge	No	No
HANÁK	No**	No
Fulling Mill	Yes	Yes
Bass Pro Shops	No	Yes
Offshore Angler	No	Yes
Berkley	No	Yes
Raven	No	Yes
Tsunami	No	Yes***

*Note that while Ahrex doesn't have true size PDF, they list the measurements for their hooks in product specifications.

**Note that HANÁK does have some hooks and sizes available in true size in their catalog but not all.

***Tsunami has started direct to consumer sales but doesn't currently sell all hook offerings.