About 20 years ago I took a long-range, 10 day, salt water fishing trip out of San Diego, CA down the coast of baja.
Preparing for the trip was a tremendous outlay of cash for extra gear, line, hard baits, cloths, etc.
The day before the trip I discoverd I needed some rubber boots. Helly hansons were the prefered choice, but at $40 a pair, I didn't have the extra cash. Found a pair of knee high rubber boots for $5 -- problem was they were white as snow.
When I got onto the boat I realized my mistake. The boat was the Qualifier 105 (105 feet) and we had about 40 serious anglers on board. I was the joke of the boat with my fairy boots. Being short, and having a tough skin, I took the ribbing in stride and said "Just wait until we are on the rail and I'll turn these boots red with all the blood from the fish I catch".
When you catch big fish on a commercial charter that size you have to allert the deck hands by yelling you have a fish. I choose to yell "Hook Up" and a deck hand would come running; because the capt of the boat wants the big fish for advertisement reasons.
I yelled "HookUp" so much on that trip that I gained the respect of the anglers, so much so they nicknamed me HookUp. I came home with the second biggest catch (in pounds) of the boat and won a jackpot big enough to pay for the trip and a 5-day trip the following week.
Through out the years, my fishing buddys kept the moniker; so when I started surfing fishing boards on the net, it was obvious what my screen name would be.