Spent Saturday on Spring Creek and ended up breaking two size 24 TCO Brand hooks at the eye. Both times were when I was hooked up with fish. The funny thing was that after breaking a fish off about 10 minutes later I was able to hook the same fish on the same exact pattern. Both times when I looked at my setup I only had the eye tied on and the rest of the hook was misisng. Has anyone else experienced this? This is the first time it happened to me. Maybe I got a bad batch or something but I guess I am going to have to start buying more expensive hooks.

I never used TCO hooks but I will tell everyone don't buy any SABER hooks. I purchased some for the first time and ONLY time at the Lancaster show and they were never tempered. They were so bad when it tried to attach the thread the HOOK actually wrapped around the thread. It sounds impossible but it happened. It was like tying a fly on a wet noodle. Lol. I'm gonna try and use them for some fies for my buddies that bum flies all the time.

i have never used them before but i would call them and let them know....if u r looking for a cheap good hook, i started to use the j stockard hooks and so far they have been really good and stay pretty sharp

Have been using Saber hooks for years and never had a problem

I perfer TCO for smaller flies. I've never had any issue with TCO except for the price.

Oh oops...I ment TMC the Tiemco...guess I got it mixed up with TCO. I have had issues with Mustad hooks 18 and smaller at times. Dry fly hooks I refuse to use Mustad except for 12s or bigger. Dry fly hooks I perfer Daiichi or some other brand that starts with a D that I can't think of but I still use the TMCs in 20s and smaller for dries.

If this is the way Saber hooks are they can keep them.

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What's wrong with that? It did not break.

Lol.....And it never will. I bought 3 packs of their hooks and they were all like wet noodles. I think a guppy would be able to straighten their hooks out. Sorry for thread jacking guy. I'm done now.

Send them back to Saber

+1 on Tiemco (TMC) hooks for 18 and under.

Yes, they do cost a little more than other hooks but I've never really understood guys who fish with an $800 rod, $200 reel, $70 fly line and yet still insist on trying to save 25 cents on a hook, which is far more important than the rod, reel and line.

I have looked at TCO hooks and they didn't look good to me so I passed. There is something about the color and line of a cheap hook that makes me wary. But it is odd that both hooks broke near the eye. I wonder if there might have been something about the pattern (bead placement maybe?) that could have created a stress point. It seems unlikely, but since the original poster stated that both hooks broke in the same place and it was the same pattern I figured it was worth mentioning.
I used TMC for a long time, but I go through enough hooks that the price became annoying. I agree with Darryl that you don't want to save money at the cost of quality, but there are some fairly good options that are less expensive. Saber are cheap but soft. I never found anything as bad as Delta_Dog's examples, but I pretty much wrote off saber after trying a few packs. The J. Stockard hooks are good quality. After using hundreds of J. Stockard hooks I only have found one with a minor cosmetic defect. They are not as sharp as TMC out of the pack, but I sharpen them during use anyway, so that is not a big problem. Lately I have been using a lot of Allen hooks. Their standard nymph hooks are fine, comparable to J. Stockard, and I just recently tried their premium dry fly hooks and really like them. Both J. Stockard and Allen offer reasonably priced quality hooks and great customer service.

No issues with the pattern simply monocord and some muskrat dubbing.

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Well there goes another beautiful theory destroyed by ugly facts I guess I would be returning those hooks to TCO.

I would recomend DIA RIKI hooks. They are super sharp ansd run about 5 buck for 50. Until you hit the 810 1\0 to 3\0. The 3\0s are killer pike/musky hook.