Late Night Tying Disaster!

I spilled an entire storage box of hooks into my wastebasket and all over the floor. I had to come up with a way to recover my hooks. A magnet had to be the easiest way to accomplish the recovery. So in the morning I headed off to Home Depot in search of a hook picker upper solution. I found some small high powered magnets that I attached to a tongue depressed with 5 minute epoxy and presto a home made hook picker upper. This worked remarkably well. I got 99% of the hooks. I'm sure I will find the remaining 1% when I am walking around barefoot. I used the new "wand" in the wastebasket and it got the majority of the hooks there too. 

After looking round my tying desk I realized that magnets could be used in a number of applications. The 25 packs of Umpqua hooks come on a magnetic square. I had always pitched the squares in the past. After a new purchase of hooks, I took the magnetic square and permanently attached (5 minute epoxy) them to the bottom of my tying wastebasket (A clean 5 gallon paint bucket). Now, stray hook that make their way into my wastebasket stick to the magnets. When I empty the basket I recover the stray hooks that are sticking to the magnets on the bottom of the wastebasket.

I also use a magnet to magnetize my tying scissors slightly to aid in picking up hooks off of my tying desk while I am tying.

Something to try.

Scott M