[Uncle Miltie]

When you’re fishing for up to 20 pound fish that can rip you up, you need stout hooks. There is a trade off between bendiness and brittleness that you have to get exactly right. Alec had custom steel wire made for him to hit the sweet spot between those two problems. I never bent or broke one of his hooks on steelhead except one size 7 once. Still caught the fish.

Alec had the wire hand manufactured by Japanese ladies in their living rooms by the piece, back in the day. The exact shape of the hook (see pic above) is critical. If you BREAK off the barb, it leaves a tiny nubbins of a barb left behind, which is all you need. Virtually the only way that hook is coming out is by hand. I caught over 100 steelhead on Alex’s hooks and lost maybe 5, tops. But the hook backs out just fine without blood every time, but by hand.

Average steelhead up here in the PNW is maybe 7 pounds. I was banging 24 a year in my heyday back in the late ‘90s.

[Uncle Miltie]

Here’s a picture of Alec and some other early members of the Washington Steelhead Flyfishers as published in Trey Combs’ “Steelhead Fly Fishing”. This from an article by Joe Rossano, a guy I knew.

Anyhow, I fished with all these guys when they were 60 something and I was 30 something. I’m guessing that would be Alec’s semi famous Bogdan reel in the pic.