Barbed or Barbless. What's your opinion?

[Baronizer]

My stash of hooks consists of both the barbed and barbless variety. This is because i am not really bothered as to which ones i use. I was just wondering what other peoples views of these two types of hooks were, and what they think is the best type.

[Baronizer]

Please note that i am quite new to anglers net, so if this topic has been raised in the past i am sorry for those who are angered to be seeing it again.

[Peter Waller]

Can't think why anyone should be moved to anger Baroniser! They only ever get angry when I mention the Countryside Alliance!!

 

For silver fish I use barbless. With treble hooks being used for pike I use squeezed barbs, rather than barbed. With circle hooks, when pike fishing, I use barbless.

[rob.i]

same as pete barbless for silver fish makes unhooking easier and less trouble when unhooking out of thumb ,socks jumpers etc

[Newt]

Certainly the topic has been done before. And gotten quite heated on at least one occasion.

 

Hard to find a fresh water angling issue we haven't done in fact.

 

But new folks on the forum, some of the older ones gone, and a few who will have changed some opinions based on new information, the air temperature, or the price of coffee in Brazil or something. So no problems raising a question again.

 

Almost a moot question for me since barbless hooks are hard to find over here but I will generally crush the barbs down quite a bit on larger hooks (and that is Americal 'larger hooks' so #2 and up).

 

My favorite brand of circle hooks have a microbarb so nothing changed on them - just fish them right out of the package.

[Guest allibee]

I am happy to fish with whatever the fishery rules are ... unhooking them from fish or thumb, well that's a different matter

[spodrokit]

I always use barbless hooks these days and unless i was catching to keep n eat, i don't think i'll ever use a barbed hook again. :cool:

[Leon Roskilly]

For some species, for some situations, barbless are best, for other species, for other situations barbed hooks are safest.

 

Using the wrong hooks in the wrong situation, and abusing their use, is poor angling practice.

 

The big problem is that fools try to make rules for the ignorant, and only make things worse.

 

Understand the tackle you use, its limitations, its advantages and its dangers, always mindful that nothing is 100% safe.

 

Or become an angler who is like a painter that only paints by numbers, not really a painter at all, because they produce pictures, but never really understand their art.

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Guest allibee]

To quote one of those 'fools' :

 

You can teach an angler to unhook properly, but you can't teach a fish to fight 'properly'

[kleinboet]

I always use barbless hooks, I also think I have learned to hook a fish without tearing its mouth off. When I was younger I would strike the rod as hard as I could. I think this was a legacy of the old days, before chemically sharpened hooks. Nowadays I just lean into the fish with no problems and no damaged mouths.

The thing is, whether the hooks are barbless or not, if you don't show people HOW to hook the fish properly, you will always end up with damaged fish!

 

[ 23. August 2004, 08:18 PM: Message edited by: kleinboet ]