Ed Mitchell Outdoors

AHREX SA 210 Bob Clouser Signature Streamer Hook

Recently I sat down to tie a few of Bob Clouser’s famous Deep Minnows. This is undoubtedly one of the most effective flies ever devised in both sweet and salty waters. A must have. Don’t leave home without it. This time around I felt like trying a new hook. And what better hook to try than one specifically designed by Bob for the salt – The Ahrex SA210 Bob Clouser Signature Streamer Hook.

Made in Scandinavia, this high quality salt water hook has a straight eye, a true micro barb, a long shank, a needle point and a wide gap. Below you’ll see a comparison between this hook in size 1#, and a Mustad C70SD size 1#. (The Mustad is on the bottom.) By the way Ahrex also makes a standard shank length salt water streamer hook as well – Model SA220

As nice as this Ahrex SA210 Bob Clouser Signature Streamer Hook looks, and it does look like a winner, there is one question in my mind. Although this baby is meant for the salt, it is carbon steel,  not stainless. Ummm, odd. Ahrex explains their choice of metal this way.

“We’ve chosen to make the hooks from carbon steel. Carbon steel is stronger and holds a point better than stainless steel. But it’s not stainless. They are however coated with the brand new A-Steel finish, which makes them very resilient and resistant to saltwater – even the high saline salty environments of the tropics.”

Will the A-Steel finish hold up? I can’t say yet, but comments on the internet are encouraging. Expect me to report back as the season progresses. In the meantime I’ll keep my fingers crossed.