The Story

Dr Andrew Worthington, inventor of Hookpoint:

“I discovered fly fishing later in life, but ‘better late than never’ Like many in my position, I was struck by the magnificent countryside fly fishing gave me access to. This is still a great reason to go fly fishing, but catching fish in these environments completes the thrill. ‘Bumping-out’ of fish, and failure to connect, led me to scrutinise (as far as I could) the hooks and points to make sure they were sound and needle sharp. However, using simple magnifiers was difficult, when standing in, and being buffeted by a river. I couldn’t hold the fly steady and in focus.  Thus, the idea for Hookpoint was conceived, with a dedicated hook clamp to hold and manipulate the hook in focus. 

“With Hookpoint it is possible to hone the point to produce ‘sticky’ hooks. When fishing upstream spiders on the Herefordshire Lugg one spring morning in 2008, I was distracted after casting. A fly from a sparse hatch emerged, and whilst trying to get a look to identify it, took my eye off the fly line. When my gaze returned to the water, my eye was caught by a nice grayling travelling ‘dead-drift’ past me, having a coughing fit. This fish was trying to dislodge the hook that I had just sharpened I gathered up the slack line and brought a lovely grayling to hand. 

“Once I started inspecting hooks and eyes, I found curled-over or broken points and unclosed eyes. This allowed me to either reject the hook, or correct the fault before investing time and materials tying a fly. Overhand ’wind’ knots can cut line strength by 50%. I have found with Hookpoint that these can be detected and unpicked easily under magnification, provided they are found before they have been pulled tight. This can save a lot of time if you have a multi-dropper rig”.

Hookpoint has a multitude of uses, and can be used for other precision tasks. These include the close-clipping of knots and tags (without clipping the fly), and precision-clipping of tying thread and hackles, when tying flies. 

Hookpoint is made to a high specification in the UK. An optical engineer has been used to design the lens to maximise the field and optimise the magnification and brightness of image – it is even possible to see the metal particles after honing the point 3 engineering plastics have been incorporated , according to the function of each component. The light unit uses a super-bright LED, but one that gives long battery life. Hopefully, Hookpoint will encourage investigation of the invertebrate animals that trout and grayling feed on. This not only helps in fly selection, but helps monitor the state of the aquatic environment.