Black nickel is proving to produce a more durable hook – important for modern fishers as the finish is more slippery and corrosion-resistant, and also the hooks are sharper, and can withstand our efforts to de-barb them with pliers better.

All these hooks have a black nickel finish, black and glossy so in photographs these may look more silver than they are. Black nickel is not the same as the black coating used on traditional salmon hooks, those are Japanned which means the hook is coated with a black lacquer which is then baked onto the hook. More conventional bronze hooks are coated with varnish, which gives the brown colour. Black nickel is a more modern surface treatment, where the coating is electro-plated to the surface.

The original purpose of coating a hook is to protect the wire, the metal, to prevent or at least delay corrosion. So the tougher the coating the longer a hook will last and the black nickel coating has proven very durable indeed. However the story doesn't end there, at least for modern high carbon steel hooks, a very fine/thin surface coating means the point and barb are sharper and a smooth hard coating tends to be more slippery, so a point will pierce or cut and penetrate more easily and more cleanly. (There is a slight fly-tying downside to hooks with slippery surfaces which need a little care when wrapping the first few turns of thread. If in doubt a touch of thin tying varnish with the first tight thread wraps soon solves the problem.)

Nordic tube single
If we intend to fish with tube-flies we need suitable single hooks. Treble hooks were the norm at the tail of tubes, for conservation reasons many waters now forbid all trebles (and are casting a suspicious eye over doubles). Responding to changing attitudes and demand hook makers introduced straight-eyed tube-doubles and, more recently still, tube-singles.

So the hook at the tail of a tube should be strong, some tubes fish deep so they should stand up to abuse as they bash against rocks. I fish tubes for salmon so I expect to release most if not all the fish I hook and land, so the barb should be small – large enough to prevent the hook slipping out but small enough for unhooking or crushing. Oh, and I prefer a hook with a short point making the point less fragile.

Now look at the Nordic tube single. Obviously this is a short shank, straight eyed hook suitable for tubes. Formed from stout wire, the bend is slightly flattened or forged for added rigidity. The ring eye is well formed and large enough to 'lodge' in the plastic tubing at the butt of my tube flies. The points are fairly short and curve towards the eye a fraction, that slight 'beak' suits me – the idea is that the very tip of the hook is in a more direct line of pull with the leader and 'beaking' means the sharp point is slightly less exposed when the fly is rumbling about near rocks. The barb is tiny and placed close to the point so it should hold the hook in place but cause the minimum of damage and/or can be crushed down without damaging the hook.

Simply very high quality hooks, exactly what I want from a heavy duty tube single.
Prices: £3.99 for 10

Universal Predator
To me this looks like an improved version of an Aberdeen hook. Aberdeens are simple general purpose long-shank hooks, straight-eye, round-bend with no offset, formed from fine wire. Very common sea hooks, Aberdeens are used mostly for bait with fly tying as an afterthought. Fine wire means Aberdeens pull free from weed fairly easily and, of course, they hook into fish easily – the down side of fine wire is they can also straighten easily.

Partridge seem to have noticed Aberdeen hooks are being used despite some shortcomings and set out to make a stronger version, using a slightly heavier wire, which retains the familiar long, straight shank, simple round-bend and relatively wide gape. Just looking at the proportions of this hook it ain’t difficult to see the attraction – I can tie bulky flies without closing the gape.
Prices: £3.00 for 10 (size 6 – 1/0) £4.00 for 10 (sizes 2/0 and 4/0)

Heavy Nymph Double
Viewed in profile the proportions of an HND are very similar to a traditional wet-fly single. Trout doubles are chosen for their weight, strength and hooking power. Twice as much wire as a single so on the point of a three-fly team a double anchors the cast of flies. Heavy wire and two hooks so strength is hardly an issue and if both hook-points are set there is little change of a good double pulling free (at least in theory.)
The legs of the HND are very neatly brazed together, in profile I can see no lumps or bumps, lovely for tying. Neat eye, ever so slightly angled down, that shallow angle is fine by me but the eye on traditional wet-fly hooks is steeper, I guess some purists may want a steeper angle? The points on these seem ‘well balanced’ long enough so the sharp tapered cone pierces easily, short enough so the fine tip is not too fragile – and very tiny barbs.
Partridge sent two size samples, 14 and 18 HND. While the larger hook had me thinking of so called 'wee double' lures for trout, the smaller hook makes me think of sea trout patterns – I'm still working out why.
Prices: £3.99 for 10

Big Mouth Double
A dual-purpose double hook I guess. Heavy wire, short-shank, wide-gape, straight-eye. Partridge make a single equivalent, the Big Mouth Nymph, which has a down eye. For fly tying that huge gape means we can tie bulky flies without compromising the gape – in the gloss on their BMN Partridge mention Boobies and Blobs. I can see the logic. I doubt I'd use a BMD as a base for Boobies, but for Blobs or, say, lures with bodies formed from Fritz/Estaz chenille – why not?
The short shank and straight eye of the BMD makes this an ideal tube double, with the bonus of that wide gape which suits large tubes or heavily dressed flies.
Again the brazing is exemplary. Again the needle points balance well between long and fine for easy piercing and short strong points which need a little more force to set the hook.
Price: £3.99 for 10