Jamison Barbless Hooks
How Smiling Bill Jamison Made His Barbless
Jamison Barbless Hooks; It must not be supposed that it was an easy thing to design this simple hook. “Bill,” like thousands of others, had an exaggerated idea of the power of a fish to throw a hook. He thought it would take some unusual and and more or less complicated means to hold them. He tried many schemes, but were entirely satisfactory.
Finally it flashed on him that the reason so many fish were lost on barbed hooks was not that the fish had any mysterious power to throw the hooks, but that the hooks either failed to penetrate beyond the barbs in many cases or else the knife-like edges of the barb had made the enlargement of the hole easy by cutting a notch in the fibers of the flesh just as a dry goods clerk cuts the edge of a piece of cloth he is going to tear. As soon as the hole was enlarged the barb lost its effect.
“Bill” then came to the conclusion that what was needed was much better penetration and an entire lack of cutting power. He figured out that a hook with a smooth and very gradually tapered point would slip through the fibers of the flesh with a wedge-like action,gradually forcing them apart, but with no danger of cutting or breaking them. In order to hold the hook in place, he would add a small “hump.” Then he would give the hook an extra deep bend, which would help a lot more.
He found by placing the “hump” on the tapered part leaving a penetration or starting point of good length above it, that most of the resistance naturally offered by “hump” was relieved or overcome and he had a hook that penetrated instantly,went all the way in and stayed in. As he had anticipated, the taper extending and beyond the “hump” maintained the wedge-like action and the “hump” easily slipped through the flesh without tearing or enlarging the hole.
Then he discovered that by placing the “hump” on the inside of the bend the yielding flesh naturally compressed as the hook went in and it as naturally expanded to normal again after the “hump” had passed. Here then was a resistance not easily overcome by any fish, no matter how active he was, for the flesh would have to be compressed again in or der to allow the “hump” to pass out. The extreme light weight of the fly would neutralize the power of the fish to such a large extent that this would be practically impossible under ordinary circumstances. In case of heavier flies or baits, larger but hooks with bigger “humps” and deeper bends, could be used with the same effect.
Two days later “Bill” and two friends walked into camp on a Northern Wisconsin trout stream with ample evidence in their baskets that the new hook was 100 percent perfect, as none of the three had lost a single fish, and they had caught a-plenty. To their delight they also found the little ones could be shaken off the hook without handling them, with no more injury than a tiny pin hole in their jaws that would heal in a few hours. Two more days of fishing gave the same results.
Since that first trial many entirely disinterested men have given the hooks exhaustive tests. They included over a dozen men of national reputation as authorities on angling, whose judgment and veracity cannot be questioned. Among them were expert bait and fly fisher men, champion tournament casters, fish culturists, scientific men and the fishing editors and of several magazines and large daily newspapers.
After trying them on everything from blue gills to muskellunge they were unanimous in reporting that the hooks had greatly superior penetration, landed fully as many fish as any barbed hooks, if not more, and without killing or injuring any of the small ones and that fishing would be greatly improved by the use of the hooks So it would seem that every angler who is interested in better fishing should at least give the new hook a trial. It is to his own interest to do so.
Smiling Bill Jamison Barbless Hooks story about a classic antique fishing lure maker who contributions to history and the industry cannot be understated.
How Smiling Bill Jamison Made His Barbless
By Wisconsin Cal Johnson
