It Can Happen

The more the world changes the more we think that some established business will stand the test of a competitor, well they do not. Gone are the days in which a company can withstand another company trying to take over, here is an example.
  During the 80's Mustad was the best and one of the very few fly tying hooks on the market, we all remember those little white boxes with the white semi waxed paper inside of them holding 100 hooks. Mustad had the fly tying market cornered except for some of the Partridge hooks from England, one of them was the Vince Marinaro dry fly hooks, they were crap, soft. I am not sure if the hooks were that soft or it was our new tippet material that was strong and we did not play our fish that long, because we were told to get the trout in fast and get them back. Not many people used the English hooks back then and they were not cheap because they were hand made. Well we did not see any other hooks making a dent in the Mustad market, then we began to see a lot of 94840 & 94833 #14 & 16 hooks that were soft and began to open at the bend when a fish was hooked, some of my clients began to complain about this and we started to check the hooks and yes there was a problem maybe not as bad as first though, again maybe it was the new tippet material, Cortland had Nylorfe from France and it was very strong as was Maxima from Germany. Low and behold we began to see a new hook on the market "Tiemco" from Japan, not cheap but dam good quality and super sharp. What began as a problem for one company became an opportunity for another and history was made. Tiemco became the hook of choice on the market and Mustad began to become less available to fly tyers in this country. We saw the little white boxes now sporting the Tiemco label on them and the white paper inside holding new an exciting hook designs. Given the cost difference Tiemco had to come up with a new package, they put 25 hooks on a G-Dam magnet and enclosed it in a plastic bag thereby lowering the cost. I for one hate those magnets because it does not allow me to line my hooks up by dozens in a neat fashion, the hooks stick to my tweezers.
  Now in 2018 we have a ton of hooks on the market most of them are good but once in a while you will find some of the European ones may have the same soft problem, the hook opens up just enough after hooking a fish that you can not get a good hook set on a fish and wonder why your not hooking fish- check you fly and see if it did in fact open at the bend- if so get it off because bending it back is not the answer. Go home a tie more flies with better hooks. We have seen new manufactures coming out every year, look at new one "Ahrex from Sweden/Norway- really great wire, styles and super sharp. Yes even Partridge has a line of Predator hooks that are super as does Gamagatsu!
  Case in point if your in business never think that you will not have someone who can do it better than you can because they can and will
  If you think the streams are crowded, well they are just look how many fly tying hook companies are out there making a living off us, no wonder sometimes you just want to go home and not deal with the crowds.