Ban on barbless hooks!!

[Neal]

Fished Yately South Lake yesterday, have not fished it in a year. My rigs consisted of barbless hooks as that was the rule last time I fished there. Baliff came around and told me to change to barbed hooks Apparently RMC in conjuction with a university have decided that barbed hooks cause less damage to the fishes mouth than barbless. All big angling venues are supposed to be following suite. Any thoughts?

[erik]

whilst i believe barbed are safer to fishes mouths once experienced, to new and inexperienced carpers, they do pose potential problems, difficulty unhooking/leaving fish tethered etc. personally would have allowed barbless on day ticket waters but banned them in certain styles, long shanked curved hook patterns in particular.

 

[ 28. April 2004, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: erik ]

[Chesh]

being a member of the rmc website, i can say that the research that Ian Welch, Viv Shears, Sparsholt, and the rest of the bunch do is second to none, granted there has been very little publicised, but why should they ? the end of the day they make the rules and if you dont stick by them you dont fish the particular waters !!

 

by the way did you catch anything?? and what swim wehere you on? we were there last month 6 of us and only 2 fish caught (2 x 12lbers) from the back channels and the swims around there !!

[Rob Ward]

I agree entirely.

[Neal]

I had two fish, a lovely coloured common at 18 and a mirror at 17, fantastic condition both of them. Both caught on Squirrel boillies during a day session. Swim 6 tight against the island.

[RobStubbs]

I don't know what the research says but I don't believe there is a lot of difference between the two hooks. The only undisputable fact is that a carp (or any fish) can rid itself of a barbless hook easier than a barbed hook. That said if you are losing fish (and rigs) frequently then you are doing somethng majorly wrong.

 

Rob.

[Bert]

I have seen some shocking damage done to carp with barbless hooks where during a protracted battle the hook has ripped its way forward to the front of the mouth. I will always abide by the fishery rules and accept there are some occasions when barbless hooks should be preferred,I've always been a fan of micro barbs you get minimal damage on hook removal and very little slippage when playing fish. I actually know of an angler who walked off a fishery with a barbed hook ban when he saw the damage he had caused a carp using barbless hooks.

[malevans]

I don't understand how the original research which drove the conversion to barbless missed this out. I recon 3 years and we will have the research that supports a switch back to barbless and three years after that.......

[Peter Sharpe]

First twenty of the year last night. Barbless size 6 that didn't move a millimetre. I really don't know what you have to do to cause the kind of tearing that wouldn't also be caused with a barbed hook if you were unlucky enough to hook a carp in a certain way and in a particular area of the mouth. Tearing would have to be caused by the bend of the hook on a particularly soft and fleshy part of the mouth. If it occurred with the point, it would make no difference if the hook was barbed or not.

As a footnote, if you've ever lost a fish on either type of hook, there is a high probability that you have torn the mouth. **** happens.

[Bod]

I know I'm new to the game, but wasn't it not so long ago (in the grand scale of things), that barbed hooks were the evil of satan, and barbless were the fish' saviour?

 

Interesting to see how tides have turned.