Bone Fishhooks

Bone Fishhooks: One of Our Earliest Tools

Materials:

Deer bone
Knife
150 grit sandpaper

The Process:

In my research, I found that the easiest way to create the bend of the hook is to find that bend in nature. The lower jawbone of a deer has a clear bend where it connects to the upper jaw; this bend is ideal for hook making. I obtained several deer jawbones from a coworker and set to work on transforming them from raw materials to useful tools.

Once I had identified my material, I used a small scroll saw to saw off the distal tip of the lower jawbone, which created a small chunk of bone with a curve.

Left: Sawing off the end of the deer jawbone.

Right: the produced bone fragment used to create a hook

I then had the rough shape of a hook, and moved on to using a file to shave off excess material. I focused on the protruding nubs at the end of the curve, filing them off to make a more-or-less flat piece of bone. I then worked with a file and sandpaper for several hours, slowly shaping the bone into a more gracile form. I thinned the shank of the to-be hook, and removed material to make the curve smooth. I used my knife to score the side of the fishhook with a small cut, and then used sandpaper to file small indents at the tops of the hooks, so that they could be tied onto a fishing line. Without these indents or nubs, the hook could easily slide off the end of the line.

The trickiest part to shape was the tip of the hook; being an angler myself, I know how crucial a sharp hook can be. I used my carving knife to thin the point, and then hand sanded the point until sharp.

Shaping the Hook

2026-03.pdf

Additional Research on the history of fishhooks can be found in my written essay Angling for a Catch: Fishhooks in Maryland as a part of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory's regular series Curator's Choice. This was written in course of my mundane life.

History of the Hook

From the earliest inhabitants to modern anglers, fishing has long been a way of life for humans. One foundational piece of technology to harvest this aquatic bounty is the fishhook. This simple object has had a huge impact for such a small tool, evolving from prehistoric hand-crafted bone hooks to the mass-produced variety of steel hooks today.

Indigenous peoples made their home along the banks of the water, relying on harvesting fish and shellfish as a part of their daily life. They used a variety of methods to catch fish such as nets, hook and line, spears, and weirs (traps). William Strachey, a British colonist to Virginia, described the hook and line method in 1612:

“Their angles are long small rods at the end whereof they have a cleft to which the line is fastened, and at the line they hang a hook, made either of a bone grated (as they nock their arrows) in the form of a crooked pin or fishhook, or of the splinter of a bone, and with a thread of the line they tie on the bait (Strachey 1612, 79).”

There are many examples of these fishhooks in the archaeological record. I focused my research on bone fishhooks found in my home state of Maryland, visited the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (where I happen to be the archivist) and photographed several examples, both dating to the Late Woodland cultures. These examples were recovered from near Catoctin Creek in Frederick county, as well as along the Potomac River and were carefully crafted from bone. Fishhooks of various organic materials, including bone, shell, and horn have been discovered around the world, some dating back to 25,000 years ago (Corbyn 2011).

Bone fishhook from 18FR4, near Catoctin Creek in Frederick County, MD. Dates to Late Woodland period, (900-1600).

Bone fishhook from 18MO13, along the Potomac River in Montgomery County, MD. Dates to Late Woodland period.

Both of the above fishhooks were recovered in archaeological excavations in the state of Maryland, and date to the Late Woodland period, roughly 900-1600. Fishing was a crucial foodway for native peoples of the Chesapeake, but this essential technology (bone fishhooks) has been found across the globe from various different cultures.

As European colonists arrived at the end of the 16th century, they applied their own methods to catching the variety of aquatic life they encountered in the Chesapeake. Their fishhooks were made of metal, typically iron or a copper alloy, and have been found at several sites along waterways. While they also used nets and traps, they primarily used hook and line from the shore, just as many anglers in Maryland enjoy today. We know this from inventories of their items. “A sample of 900 household probate inventories of colonists between 1640 and 1740 were examined, and 95% of those had only one type of fishing gear – hooks and lines.....Curiously, few of the homes had boats or canoes (Miller 2022).”

Left: Colonial period metal fishhook from King’s Reach site, at Jefferson Patterson Park, Prince Frederick, MD. Dated 1610.

In the medieval period, fishhooks were a cottage industry, and many anglers made their own. The below are instructions for crafting a metal hook, a passage from a 1496 treatise on fishing (Berners 1496):

“And for small fysshe, ye shall make your hookes of the smallest quarell nedilles that ye can fynde of stele, and in this wyse ye shall put the quarell in a read charcole fyre, tyll it be of the same coloure that the fyre is. Than take hym out and let hym kele, and ye shall fynde hym well allayed for to fyle. Than rayse the barde with your knyfe, and make the poynt sharpe. Than alay him agayne or els he will breake in the bendyng. Than bende hym lyke to the bende accordyng to the purpose. And greater hookes ye shall make in the same wyse of great nedles, as broderers nedelles, or taylers, or shoomakers nedles, spere pointes of shoomakers nailes, in especiall the best for greate fysshe, and loke that they bend at the poynt wha[n] they ben assayed, for els they be not good. whan the hoke is bended bete the hinder ende abrode, and fyle it smothe for fretting of the lyne. Than put it into the fyre agayne, & geue it an easy read heate. Than sodonly quenche it in water, and it wyll be harde and strong.”

In a nutshell, anglers would take needles of various sizes, and heat them in the fire to make them pliable. They would then bend the needle into the curved shape, and use a knife to carve a pointed tip onto the needle. Finally they would file the shank of the hook to make it smooth, and then quench the newly made hook in water to harden.

Fishhooks were later produced commercially in England, although the metals used were fairly soft and of unknown temper and composition. Around 1640, Charles Kirby began producing fishing tackle using his own process to reliably temper steel, which resulted in a stronger and more reliable hook. Kirby hooks became known for their superior product and were dominant until crucible tempering of metal became widespread in 1750 (Herd 1997). At that point, the mass production of steel needles became possible, which were bent and shaped into fishhooks in a variety of shapes and sold.

The shape and size of a fishhook can be very different depending on the purpose of the hook. All of them catch fish of course, but anglers may choose different hooks to target different species of fish. Hooks all have some basic parts in common: the point, the bend, and the shank. While one of the first depictions of a fishhook with an eye, or a circular hole to tie the hook to the line, can be found in 1688’s Les Ruses Innocentes, a fishing and hunting guide book, most fishhooks were “blind” (without an eye) until the late 1800s and were simply tied onto the shank of the hook (Herd 1997). Sizing of fishhooks was unregulated and varied across manufacturers, with different hook scale systems in place in the nineteenth century (Fishing Museum Online 2011). Today the sizing of fishhooks is more standardized, with a larger number representing a smaller hook, and vice versa.

Depiction of fishhook with an eye from a fishing and hunting guide, Les Ruses Innocentes, 1688.

Illustration from 1496 A Treatyse of Fysshynge Wyth an Angle, by Dame Berners.

Notably, one of the first publications about fishing, specifically angling or fishing using a hook and line, was written by a woman in the 15th century. Dame Juliana Berners, a prioress of Sopwell Nunnery near Saint Albans, England published her work A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle in 1496, which discussed fishing as a sport and pastime as well providing valuable advice to the aspiring angler (Petri 2008). Notably ahead of her time, Dame Berners writes about conservation of waters and fish populations in her work, which would later become the ethical backbone of sport fishing as we know it today.

This image, titled "Purported portrait of Dame Juliana Berners," originated from a collection of engraved and lithographed portraits of English poetesses compiled by F. J. Stainforth between roughly 1820 - 1860. It is purported because there is no evidence this is, in fact, Dame Juliana Berners.

Published by Sherwood & Co, July 1st 1825.

References:

Berners, Juliana, M. G. Watkins, and Wynkyn De Worde. 1880. A Treatyse of Fysshynge Wyth an Angle / by Dame Juliana Berners: Being a Facsimile Reproduction of the First Book on the Subject of Fishing Printed in England by Wynkyn De Worde, at Westminster in 1496. With an Introduction by Rev. M. G. Watkins, M. A. E. Stock eBooks. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.5742.

Corbyn, Zoë. 2011. “Archaeologists Land World’s Oldest Fish Hook.” Nature, November. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2011.9461

Fortin, François. 1688. Les Ruses Innocentes. Paris, France: Bibliothèque nationale de France. Pg. 439.

Herd, Andrew. 1997. “A Short History of the Hook.” The Salmon Flyer 9 (3). https://feathersmc.com/SALFLYER/vol_9/summer/history.html?ref=currentflowstate.com

Miller, Henry M. 2022. “Fishing in Early Maryland.” Historic St. Mary’s City. January 11, 2022. Accessed February 11, 2026. https://www.hsmcdigshistory.org/clues-to-early-maryland-24-fishing-in-early-maryland

Petri, and Robert Lee. 2008. “Dame Juliana Berners | Medieval Angling, Sport, Fishing, Hunting, & Falconry.” Encyclopedia Britannica. March 28, 2008. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Juliana-Berners

Strachey, William. 1612. The Historie of Travaile Into Virginia Britannia: Expressing the Cosmographie and Comodities of the Country, Togither with the Manners and Customes of the People. https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.02639/page/n77/mode/2up Pg. 79.

“Lady Juliana Berners in her Costume as Prioress of Sopewell Nunnery near St Albans.” (“[Lady Juliana Berners in Her Costume as Prioress of Sopewell Nunnery Near St Albans.,” 1825.) Grosvenor Prints.

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