Blue Heron Spey Hooks were the creation of Oregon fly tier, steelhead angler, and tackle designer Dave McNeese, an important figure in the development of the Pacific Northwest style of steelhead fly tying. Blue Heron appears to have been McNeese’s proprietary hook line rather than a conventional hook-manufacturing company. McNeese designed the hook and marketed it under the Blue Heron name; the actual hooks were manufactured in Japan by Gamakatsu. Wet Fly Swing

McNeese’s interest in hook design began decades before the Blue Heron entered regular production. By the 1970s he was deeply involved with traditional Atlantic salmon flies and the emerging Pacific Northwest interpretation of the Spey fly. Syd Glasso was a particularly important influence. Glasso’s sparse, long-hackled steelhead flies demanded a hook with the right proportions and silhouette, and McNeese was dissatisfied with some of the commercially available salmon irons. In a later interview, he recalled altering Partridge hooks himself, reshaping the shank and bend to better suit the flies he wanted to tie. Around 1978 he showed his modified hooks to a representative of Partridge, beginning an association with the distinctive Bartleet-style hooks subsequently connected with McNeese. Wet Fly Swing

This background is important because the Blue Heron was not simply another generic salmon hook with McNeese’s name attached. It represented a continuation of his long-running effort to make the hook itself part of the proportions of a Spey or steelhead fly. McNeese wanted a hook whose bend flowed naturally into the body of the fly rather than leaving a long, visually flat section of shank. That curved profile eventually became one of the most recognizable features of the Blue Heron.

Development of the Blue Heron

The Blue Heron project can be documented surprisingly early. In the Summer 1991 issue of The Salmon Flyer, a survey of salmon-fly hooks mentioned the proposed “Davey McNeese Blue Heron Spey Hook.” At that point the hook was still described as awaiting production, with the writer joking that 1992 would be the earliest likely arrival. The intended range was then described as approximately sizes 3/0 through 6. Northwest Fly Tyer

That reference shows that the Blue Heron name and basic concept existed by 1991, but the production history afterward is less clear. I have not found evidence establishing continuous commercial production through the 1990s. In fact, when Northwest Fly Tyer discussed the hook around 2009, it called the Blue Heron a “new entry into the hook market.” The production version was then described as a 3X-long hook with a sweeping bend, black-nickel finish, and a fine, elongated, low-set eye. Northwest Fly Tyer

The evidence therefore points to a design with a long gestation: conceived by the early 1990s, but apparently reaching the form most tyers now recognize as the Blue Heron considerably later. Whether there were small or intermittent production runs between those dates remains an open question.

Gamakatsu Production

The eventual production hook was made for McNeese by Gamakatsu of Japan. McNeese himself later explained how that relationship developed. One of the young anglers who had spent time around his fly shop eventually went to work for Gamakatsu, providing McNeese with the connection needed to move the Blue Heron design into production. Wet Fly Swing

The resulting hook combined McNeese’s traditional salmon-fly aesthetics with modern Japanese hook manufacture. Contemporary descriptions specify a 3X-long shank, low-set tapered eye, very sharp point, and hard black-chrome or black-nickel finish. Unlike an antique blind-eye Spey iron, the Blue Heron could be tied and fished directly while still giving a finished fly much of the sweeping profile associated with nineteenth-century salmon and Spey hooks. Northwest Fly Tyer

Its most distinctive feature is the continuous curve running from the shank into the bend. Compared with a conventional salmon hook having a long straight shank followed by a relatively abrupt bend, the Blue Heron gives the tyer a shorter-looking working shank and a long flowing rear curve. That geometry became particularly popular for Spey flies, Dee-style flies, feather-wing steelhead patterns, and later freestyle salmon flies. Modern fly dressers have continued to single out Blue Herons alongside Bartleet and Alec Jackson hooks when discussing this curved style of salmon iron. SHOR FISHING

Sizes and Packaging

Later commercial Blue Herons are most commonly encountered as sizes 1, 2, and 3. Surviving dealer stock confirms those three sizes, although early descriptions sometimes identified the hooks by their overall length rather than conventional hook numbers. Around 2009, for example, hooks measuring roughly 2 and 2½ inches were being advertised, with another smaller size planned. Doug Millsap

The original package shown here is a useful piece of Blue Heron history. Its front carries the characteristic heron illustration and vertically arranged BLUE HERON name with “Spey Hook” below it; this example is marked size 2. The reverse identifies Dave McNeese directly and gives his Springfield, Oregon address. Independent business records also associate McNeese’s custom fly-rod and tackle business with that Springfield address. Better Business Bureau

This packaging reinforces an important point for collectors: the Blue Heron was fundamentally a Dave McNeese product, not a large independent hook manufacturer. Gamakatsu supplied the manufacturing expertise, while the design, identity, and marketing were McNeese’s.

A Pacific Northwest Hook

The Blue Heron became closely associated with the Pacific Northwest school of Spey and steelhead fly tying. That connection reflected McNeese’s own career. By the 1970s and 1980s he was combining ideas from Atlantic salmon flies with the steelhead traditions of anglers such as Syd Glasso. John Shewey has described McNeese and the circle around his Oregon fly shop as an important influence on the increasingly elaborate feather-wing steelhead flies being tied in the Northwest by the mid-1980s. Fly Tyer

The Blue Heron proved especially well suited to those flies. Its long graceful bend gives room for extended tags and tails, while the relatively low eye allows a small, clean head. The hook can carry a sparse Glasso-style Spey dressing without overpowering it, but it is equally at home under more elaborate married-wing or freestyle salmon flies.

Its popularity spread well beyond Oregon. Published patterns and tying demonstrations from the 2010s onward regularly specify Blue Heron hooks, including traditional Spey patterns such as the Lady Caroline and modern interpretations of the Sol Duc Spey. Even after production ended, tyers continued using remaining stocks and comparing newer hooks against the McNeese design. SHE TIES FLIES

Collecting Blue Heron Hooks

Blue Heron Spey Hooks are now out of production, and unused examples have become progressively harder to find. Specialist salmon-fly dealers describe remaining stocks as limited and typically list sizes 1, 2, and 3 individually rather than by full packages. Doug Millsap

For collectors, original packaging adds considerably more historical interest than loose hooks alone. A package such as the example illustrated here documents the Blue Heron name, McNeese attribution, Springfield address, original heron artwork, and hook size together in one artifact. It connects the physical hook directly with the Oregon designer who created it.

More importantly, the Blue Heron occupies an unusual place in hook history. It is a modern Japanese-made fishing hook, yet its form grew directly out of McNeese’s study of nineteenth-century salmon irons, Syd Glasso’s steelhead flies, and his own experiments with Partridge hooks dating back to the 1970s. That combination makes the Blue Heron one of the more distinctive purpose-designed Spey hooks to emerge from the Pacific Northwest fly-tying tradition.