Grip Hooks come from South African brand Scientific Fly. While finding South African hooks in UK tackle shops may seem a little odd, since South Africa has a wealth of fly-fishing in fresh and saltwater it strikes me as a pretty good place from which to run a brand. (Oh, and 99% of the hooks I see are made in the Far East regardless of where the brand calls ‘home’.)

I like the simple colour coding used on the packaging: green=standard, orange=barbless, purple=bass/pike, blue=saltwater. These hooks look sound to me, well formed eyes, forged bends, chemically sharpened points – nice hooks!

In particular, I like Grip's take on barbless, nothing fancy, nothing strange, the 11911BL I have in front of me is a #10 down-eyed dry fly hook and looks pretty much like the light #10 I use as standard – so without fuss or fret I can happily stop de-barbing and switch to these barbless hooks. (A catchier hook code would be great – 11911BL doesn't exactly trip off the tongue.)