Ganging up on them by Gary Brown

I can't quite remember when I started using ganged hooks, but my earliest memory was with my father using whole garfish and pilchard baits for chasing Australian salmon, tailor, bonito, kingfish, flathead and snapper. And I haven't stopped using them since.

If you have never used ganged hooks before you are definitely missing out on a great rig for chasing a number of different fish species.

It is especially good for fish that have plenty of teeth that will cut through the line in a blink of an eye. They are really effective on gummy sharks, various types of mackerel and even bream.

ALVEY GANGS

The Alvey Quick Trick Ganging Hooks come in six sizes: 1/0, 2/0, 3/0, 4/0, 5/0 and 6/0, and can be purchased in packets of 15, 50 and 1000. The unique thing that sets these ganged hooks apart from all other ganged hooks on the market is the shape of the eye.

If you look closely at the eye of these hooks, you'll see that it's not round but an oval shape. The oval eye allows you to easily make your own set of ganged hooks, and therefore increase or decrease the number of hooks you have ganged up. The best thing is that it can all be done without the use of a set of pliers.

The Alvey ganging system is a real time saver. Making up your own sets of ganged hooks before a fishing outing is very time consuming when you have to open or close the eyes of the hooks with pliers. It is also quite annoying when you have closed up the eye on the hook only to find that you can't easily twist the hook to get it into your bait.

The Alvey Quick Trick Ganging Hooks make it so much easier and quicker to use ganged hooks, which means more time fishing, rather than fiddling around trying to get the ganged hooks to sit correctly in the bait.

The first time I was shown these hooks I was a bit sceptical about their design. I thought the shape of the eye would allow them to come apart very easily, especially if you had a tailor or Australian salmon hooked up and it jumped out of the water. However, after putting a set of hooks together, I found it extremely hard to get them apart unless they were in the perfect position for attachment or removal.

There has been the odd occasion when the hook came out of the eye, but this was very rare. I am prepared to put up with that if it means I spend less time making, fixing and detaching my gang rigs.

In my tackle box I usually carry a range of hooks to accommodate several fishing situations. My hooks range from 1/0-6/0 single hooks, while I also have a variety of rigged gang hooks made up in sets of 2, 3, 4 and 5.

This range will give you the flexibility to accommodate for different sized and shaped baits. For those of you that like using strip baits you can easily design a set of gangs to suit mullet, tuna, slimy mackerel, yellowtail and many