UK North Country Fly Sizes

[DGC]

The last few pages of this materials book shows soft hackles from 1910 to 1920. Sizes are not given, but comparing the flies to the author's finger or thumb suggests many modern day 18 and perhaps 20 hook equivalents. These would have been tied in the hand.

Robert L. Smith Materials Book

 

[nfrechet]

you could ask robert in the comment area of that video

 

[redietz]

A lot of the North Country wets were tied on size 0, 00, 000 - equivalent to modern 16, 17, and 18. 000 was the smallest hook available, so they wouldn't have been tied on a size 20.

(Ironically the designations 0, 00, etc were the "new scale". It was a standard, based on bigger hooks getting bigger number, that was supposed to replace the "Redditch scale". After fifty years or so people still ordering hooks based on the Redditch sizes, the industry gave up on the "new" scale and went back to the Redditch scale with some size inflation.)