Reef hooks

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Dave Kay

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Location
Indiana
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I am wondering how long the rope should be for a reef hook. Some only come with 3 feet. Is that enough. When I look at pictures of divers in Palau, they seem to have much longer ropes. Thanks.

I was at the Beneath the Sea Convention in New Jersey a week ago. It was awesome. One booth was for an amazing assortment of diving accessories, piranhadivemfg.com
 
Cant help out in regards to reef hooks. But Piranha Dive MFG is a great company.

DW
 
Piranha is great. Length is going to kind of be dependent on how far away from the reef you want to be. Personally, on a reef hook or a jon line I use a whoopie made from vectran/dyneema/etc. It's adjustable for length.
 
A friend of mine has one from Fish 'n Fins in Palau with about 8'/2.4M of 3/4" webbing if that helps.

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What would be your application?
The one I have I use to hold my flag while assisting lobsters to get out of the ocean. I think it came with about a foot of line and it is plenty for what I do.

The picture shows the line wrapped around the hook but you get the idea.
 

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6ft is standard. you can always adjust it shorter. get some braided nylon rope. no cheap polypropylene from home depot.
 
Different regions and applications seem to use a variety of hooks and lengths.
I'm not going unloop this right now, but is probably only about 24- 30 inches which was plenty for taking hands free pics of pelagics where I have dived.
This was the set up we used in the Maldives, as is the style of loop through loop knotting of that line, to stow the hook close to our body when not using it.


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Pull the hook free of the tight top loop, and it deploys effortlessly, and only requires a little effort to re-stow where there is no risk of snagging accidentally.
 
On my first dive in Palau with a reef hook, I found my line to be too short. To a large extent it was due to a strong current that kept me bouncing up and down a bit. On the next dive I had about an 8 ft line and that worked fine.
 
Pretty much the standard length is 3-4' If attached to your crotch strap or somewhere low on a BCD this is generally fine. You can inflate yourself up a bit to keep off the reef/rocks

You can of course go longer but the balance here is, if your hook comes out and you're too high off the reef, then you're away like Mary Poppins. The higher you are, means the more exposed you are to the current too. So if you're just wanting to hook on and watch the fishes then 3-4' is fine.

All that said alongside my standard hook, on some dives I carry an extension which I can clip on (either to the hook or the end of the reef hook cord It adds another 8m of line (25') so I can fly well off the reef and into the blue. But I have to be damn sure my hook is well in before I deploy it

It's also a PITA to chain knot and tidy up at the end of a dive :)




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I find it depends what is behind you. When I’ve used mine it seems it’s often on a slope looking down, and a short line would mean my fins are hitting whatever is behind me. The line on the one I bought was definitely too short for me and I replaced it. I don’t recall the lengths offhand but 3’ seems short. I tend to hold it rather than clip so it is easy to choose my length.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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