Every supplier lists door hooks by overall length. Almost none of them list the measurement that decides whether the hook fits your pot.
Overall length is the wrong number
Overall length is the tip-to-tip dimension of the part. It tells you how big the hook is. It does not tell you where the wire sits.
The number that matters is center to center: the distance from the center of the cinch, where the hook attaches to the pot, to the center of the hook itself, where it catches the door. That span is what has to match the gap on your pot. Two hooks with the same overall length can have very different center-to-center dimensions depending on how much material sits outboard of each feature.
How to measure your pot
- Close the door the way you run it, with whatever tension you normally use.
- Find the wire the hook cinches to and the wire it catches on.
- Measure center of wire to center of wire. Don't measure edge to edge, and don't measure the hook you're replacing.
- That number, plus a little for the stretch in your band or bungee, is your target center to center.
Measuring the old hook is the common mistake. A hook that has been on a pot for two seasons has taken a set. The span you measure on a used hook is not the span it was molded at.
What's on the market
Most door hooks sold into the blue crab fishery fall between 3-1/8" and 3-3/4" overall. The small ones are generally sold for recreational traps. The larger ones, including the orange "Buffalo style" hook you see on a lot of West Coast pots, run about 3-3/4" long by 2" wide.
None of those listings publish a center-to-center dimension. If you are rigging commercial pots and the hooks keep fighting you, that missing number is usually why.
Our dimension
The FlatStack hook is 4-1/4" overall with a 3-1/2" center-to-center span, cut for a working commercial pot. We publish both numbers because you should not have to buy a box to find out whether it fits.
If you run a pot that wants a shorter span, tell us the center to center you need. We cut our own tooling here in Baltimore and we are interested in what the fleet is actually running.