New Nordic Series - Ahrex Hooks

HP Glass Minnow is another simple, inconspicuous fly, originated by Danish fly tyer, Henrik Strandgaard. Henrik is best know for classic salmon flies, but is behind this pattern, which also does very well on calm days and in clear water. Body of pearl tinsel, wing of blue and natural polar bear, kept sparse and eyes of ProSportfisher Gen3 synthetic jungle cock.

It sounds a bit like a new direction in modern, Scandinavian cuisine, but it’s not. It’s a new hook in our Nordic Series. Do they ever stop releasing new hook, you might think. Well, not in any foreseeable future. Nordic Series was the first line of hooks we released, so named to mark that we are a Danish hooks brand. Most of the hooks are intended and designed for saltwater fishing in Scandinavia, but most of them are very versatile and will fit a number of flies for all sorts of fishing.

The new hook, NS 105 D/E BL – short for Nordic Series Down Eye Barb Less. Catch and release is becoming more and more common and we support this trend. All of our FW-series come in both barbed and barbless versions. Catch and release has been normal when fishing for trout, grayling and salmon, but it’s also becoming more wide spread in saltwater sea trout fishing.

We’ve long wanted to release barbless hooks in the Nordic Series and we finally decided on this model, the NS 105. We call it a streamer, which it is, but it’s a “short streamer”. Definitely a shorter shank than our NS 118 Classic Streamer and also a slightly heavier wire gauge. This “somewhere-between-wet-fly-length-and-classic-streamer-length” makes it a quite versatile hook.

Mickey Finn: A slightly modernised version with pearl tinsel over the silver tinsel body and a few strands of pearl flash in the wing. An old timer, but still a favourite of mine for saltwater sea trout.

It does well on classic streamers (I had to tie a Mickey Finn as the first fly), but I’ve also used it for palmer flies, zonker flies and shrimp flies. It accommodates most styles.

As a streamer hook should be, we made it down eye, gave it a larger hook gape than the NS 118 and a slightly up-turned hook point, which ensures that it hooks the fish very well. And being barbless means you actually need less pressurre to hook fish. Yes, you might lose a few more fish, but you’ll also be able to release fish with greater ease and less harm to the fish. And there are places in the World, where barbless hooks are mandatory. All our hooks are well suited to have the barb squeezed down, but if you want to be absolutely sure that rules are kept, choose a barbless. You can risk that a barb is not fully flattened.

It comes in black nickel coating and in size 2-12.

We hope you like it as much as we do.

We have played with the new hook ourself, and here is a few of the flies from our vices.

IP is short for Inconspicuous Palmer, a small palmer fly that I often use on tricky fish in flat, calm conditions. Slowly retrieved it sometimes does the trick. Tail and hackles are Coq de Leon hen hackles and the body is dubbing – as simple as it gets.

*Yellow Dot Foam Beetle tied by Søren Flarup*.

We have teamed up with Rasmus Pabst Ovesen to demonstrate his delicate stickleback pattern the CDC Stickleback tied on the new hook – a pattern that has fulfilled Rasmus’ dream of a big autumn trout several times.