Eyeless (Spade) Hooks I Bought from AliExpress

[jzman]

I bought some bulk packs of eyeless hooks online from Aliexpress. The hooks are inexpensive (about $2-4 USD for packs of 100/70/50) and are worth it if you are willing to wait (2 weeks for me) for shipping from overseas.  The hooks are 2x strong 'live bait' equivalent and are called Iseama and Chinu.  Iseama are inline and Chinu are offset.  I included a photo to compare with Mustad 94151.

Eyeless Chinu:
Chinu

Eyeless Iseama:
Iseama

[Dominick]

How do you use eyeless hooks?  Dominick

[Keta]

Snelll knot.

[Gfish]

I thought people were just using them eyeless hooks for jigs with the fluoro-core assist cord set-up.

[jzman]

How do you use eyeless hooks?  Dominick

Bottom fishing mostly.  I prefer thinner wire hooks for rock fish.  I pre-tie my hooks before going out similar to the eagle claw pre-snelled baitholder hook packs that are sold everywhere.  Then I just loop them on to my hi low leader that are short 3/4 to 1 inch dropper loops.

I snell my hooks like this but then I turn the snell around so that the line comes out facing the hook point.  The snell knot is 100% knot and very easy to check for mistakes by visual inspection and a gentle tug (if any of the wraps separates its bad).

[Swami805]

I've used eyeless hooks for trout fishing, a snell knot holds up really well. They were some super sharp high end hooks from Japan. Theory is the snell gives a straighter pull on the hook shank for better penetration. Fact or fiction I don't know

[Keta]

A turned up "octopus" hook does the same thing when attached with a snell knot.

[UKChris1]

Apart from the snell knot, which has a few other names, at one time folks would slightly flatten the end of their mono line and tie a tiny overhand knot in it close to the end. How close depended on the hook size. The flattened nylon would then be whipped to the spade end hook with fine silk thread, as used in fly-tying, in pale yellow or pale green. Finally the whipping would be given a coat of varnish and left to dry.

I still have some in sizes down to an 18 (I never did get to tie those 20 and 22 hooks!) that I tied fifty years ago and they are still perfectly usable. It is a very strong system (given the line is probably only 1 or 1.5lb on small hooks).

By way of contrast, I was in the Canary Islands a few weeks ago and bought a heavy-duty spade-end hook about 10/0 in size that was attached to 2.0mm nylon with a snell (aka nail knot, tube knot etc.) and intended for giant tuna.

Some years ago I was in Greece watching a local commercial fisherman attach spade-end hooks to mono. snoods. He formed a loop with several twists in it, put the end of the hook into the loop, twisted the hook a few times and pulled the line ends. Magically he had snelled his hook securely in place. I had not seen that done like that before and could not quite follow his movements - he was so quick, and he had dozens of hooks to tie on - and have never figured out how he did it.