My friend Danny H has informed me that 80% of pike anglers still use barbed treble hooks when fishing for pike. I am willing to accept this figure as true although the use of barbed trebles is not only unnecessary, but damaging to the fish. Here is a tip to get some of the 80% to drop their barbs.
Firstly squeeze down the barbs on two of the three hooks on a treble with a pair of pliers. Choose the two hooks that are connected and leave the single hook barbed. Then use the pliers to force the barbless hooks together a little bit. This will help the free hooks stand off the bait and give you better ‘hook up`s’.
Unhooking fish will become so much easier and the pike will recover better because they are out of water for less time.
Please remember that the big females don’t live very long so they must be treated with terrific care..

Barbless hooks = more pike, bigger pike, healthier pike

Op -JB

COARSE FISHING OFFERS
CARP FISHING OFFERS
FLY FISHING OFFERS
SEA FISHING OFFERS

Guests - this sponsored link will vanish when you log-in. Click here to register for free.

Barrie Rickards does not, so I understand, agree with you! I do but who is right? P.S. Who says that big femles don't live long? How else do they get big?

Glad we are friends, I will admit to plucking the figure out of the air, based on my posts when I have tried to advocate Barbless trebles.

I 100% lure fish, I get trebles in painful places,
that is why I originally de barbed.
I lose fish, sometimes Big fish, throwing my barbless jigs or whatever, others would see this as too much of a sacrifice, That has got to be their choice to some degree.

Another point is this, considering that sometimes only one point of the treble will hook the fish, surely that means using your logic single hooks should be barbless as well, because what difference does it make to unhooking a fish if it is hooked by one barbed hook, or one point of a barbed treble.

I.E what difference will the point make if it is attached to a treble, or single.

Yes I know sometimes the trebles are down the throat, but 90% the time they're not.

and for your info, I now use barbless everything ( my son float fishes I have to set his stuff up)

" I blame the wife"

[ 07 May 2002, 10:42 PM: Message edited by: Danny H ]

Danny H - you might consider going one step further with the lures.

I got really tired of having the multi-treble hook lures so entangled in the net they were difficult to get out. And they were frequently a major hassle to get out of the fish as well.

At this point I clip one of the three hooks off and crush down the barbs on the remaining two.

Truth be told, I haven't seen a significant increases in lost fish (some but not much) and it certainly makes the lures easier to deal with.

I suppose a person who was keeping all fish caught might prefer the barbs but since I release all the fish anyway, it isn't a problem if some of the fish "self release" before I get them in the boat (or on the bank).

Newt couldn't agree more, If you check back through posts of mine dating back since I joined a.n, you'll see that lots of my lures now have only one treble, I lose fish, sure.

Here are some previous threads:
anglersnet.co.uk/cgi-bin/ubb/ultima...f=1&t=001896&p=

anglersnet.co.uk/cgi-bin/ubb/ultima...f=1&t=002195&p=

But that is my choice, others have theirs, and I don't want to preach to others, I would like to be an example, if others follow, fine.

Another point is this, considering that sometimes only one point of the treble will hook the fish, surely that means using your logic single hooks should be barbless as well, because what difference does it make to unhooking a fish if it is hooked by one barbed hook, or one point of a barbed treble.
(Quote Danny)

The single hook in the treble remains barbed so the bait stays on. Sorry for not explaining myself too well but if you look at a treble you will see it is a double hook attached to a single hook. Use the single hook as the bait hook and keep it barbed and squeeze the doubles together so they stand off the bait and de-barb them.

Op -JB

the club i`m in (farnham angling ) advocates the use of trebles armed with just one barb ,a good policy all round ,for some reason though plugs etc still seam to be fitted with anchor sized barbed trebles (or may not in recent times its ages since i bought one).the only bad fact though why is it always the barbed one that gets stuck in ones flesh? is it sods law again?

I am not in favour of barbless hooks for two reasons.
1) Barbless hooks bite much deeper than barbed thus causing more damage especially with perch.
2) To many fish come adrift when using barbless hooks especially, IMO when fishing for pike or zander.
I base this on my findings as an angler and conservationist with more than 35 years experience.

Alan.

Hiya,

1. Ok yes they do bite deeper, but in a perfect world we would all be paying attention to our rods and using very effective bite indication.. all our fish would be hooked perfectly in the scissors where they should be and there would be no risk of any injuries to the fish.

2. I found it the opposite and still do, I lose a lot more fish when using barbed hooks than I do with barbless.

Let me firstly say that I always use barbless hooks when deadbaiting for pike. These are trebles as, having tried single and double hooks for pike, I find them far more effective. However I use trebles only for pike and consider them totally unnecessary for fish like perch that don't have bony mouths.

When lure fishing for pike I've found I've lost too many pike on de-barbed trebles, but as it's extremely rare for a pike to swallow a lure down deep I don't feel that barbed trebles are a problem in this instance.

However, I replace the trebles on most of my lures with a pattern that's finer in the wire and with a smallish barb. In fact, many of the hooks on lures are like anchors! Manufacturer's fit them as lures are used for all sorts of species, some of them with very powerful jaws. For bony-mouthed fish like pike, I find that finer wire hooks with smaller barbs are far more efficient hookers anyway.

Regular readers will know that I refuse to use barbless hooks for perch in the larger sizes (above size 10) as they kill far too many of my favourite species. Indeed, I've gone as far as banning them on my own lakes at Wingham.

Barbless hooks seem to penetrate more deeply and, as perch have vital organs near the surface of the throat, can be lethal. They also appear to move about in the mouth of the fish as the barb doesn't hold the hook in one place. I'm not sure that these are the right reasons, but the reasons don't really matter. It's the results that counts, and umpteen years of specialising in perch has convinced me that large barbless hooks are killers.

The hooks I do use (Ashima Super Match and Super Maggot) have absolutely tiny barbs. In fact those on a size 6 are like a normal size 16 microbarb!

This year I've been experimenting with some circle hooks that Newt and Ian Cresswell kindly sent me. Unfortunately, I've found I've missed too many runs with them. However, this may be because I'm finding it hard to get used to just tigthening rather than striking. OTOH, it may be because the gape of the hook is much smaller than usual. Certainly my hook up rate is much higher with very large sizes of circle hooks compared with smaller ones. The problem is then that these hooks, being larger, would probably penetrate more deeply and so you're back to square one!

However, I suspect that large circle hooks could be useful for pike, especially as they have small barbs, so I'll probably find a use for them. Indeed, it may even be that I'll end up dropping trebles for bait fishing altogether. Having said that, I like to undertake extended comparative field tests before coming to any firm conclusions. As these days most of my piking is with lures this may take a long time!

BTW, Newt, have you had a chance to try the Ashimas yet?

[ 08 May 2002, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: Steve Burke ]

Steve - what Ashimas?

Did I send you any of the Gamakatsu Shiner hooks (kahle)? You might not have to unlearn quite so much to fish with them and they don't tend to deep hook either. Slightly deeper than the circles but not bad at all. #6 is the smallest made though.

If I didn't, let me know and I'll pop a package of assorted sizes in the mail for you. Just say if you prefer a straight eye or a bent-over eye.

Great for live and large dead baits too with the nice flat spot in the gap between shank and point. You might want to flatten the barb some though.

Or you could pick up some of the Eustace hooks in a kahle shape. Don't remember exactly which of his it was but have some at home and can look this evening if you want.

For pike fishing a hook that I really rate is the VMC Barbarian cone cut that has a small barb on the outside of the point. On just a couple of occasions when I was unfortunate to deep hook a pike they proved so simple and easy to remove without any damage. A freind who does a lot of lure fishing swears by them. Hooked fish stay hooked but are simple to release. Unfortunatly these hooks are hard to comeby. I picked up a supply a few years back at a trade show, but nowam running low. This pattern is also produced as a single but as yetI have not been able to locate or try any. If you can get hold of some please try them.

Alan.

Alan Pierce - I put VMC Barbarian in a google search and turned up lots of places that seem to have them for sale.