Barbed or Barbless. What's your opinion?

[*Ant*]

Finesse eh Newt?

[Newt]

Fish safety Ant. Always fish safety.

 

Who needs to catch? We just need to make sure the scaly little critters are safe.

[Vagabond]

Newt:

 

I submit that if you stay with hooks 6/0 and larger with a crushed barb, you will never cause damage to the vital organs near the perch's throat and with 10/0 and larger, no mouth damage, ever, with either barbed or barbless.

Errr.... The largest hook I have ever caught perch on is a size 4 microbarb. I usually use a size 6 or 8 for small livebaits or deadbaits. I'm talking perch from 2 to 4 pounds here.

 

Or are you tongue-in-cheek here ? ie use a hook big enough, and there is no chance of damage as the perch won't take it.

 

Tain't fair to wind an old boy up so

[*Ant*]

Spade end gaff tied to 30lb line it is then.

[Newt]

Vagabond:

 

Vagabond:

 

I submit that if you stay with hooks 6/0 and larger with a crushed barb, you will never cause damage to the vital organs near the perch's throat and with 10/0 and larger, no mouth damage, ever, with either barbed or barbless.

Or are you tongue-in-cheek here ? ie use a hook big enough, and there is no chance of damage as the perch won't take it.

Dang Vagabond, that's a great idea. Wish I'd thought of it.

 

Joking aside though, given the nice large mouth on a perch and the fact that a smaller hook is lots more likely to get deep, I would have thought that #4 or larger would be a good idea. Fewer takes maybe but lots fewer deep hooks.

 

I can't speak on this with any sort of authority since I have no large perch around to play with. I'd guess that 6oz is about the largest I've caught and even that is a rare biggun but I do take them on #4 or even an occasional #2 hook when catfishing with a bait they also happen to like. I know the UK fish tend to be harder to tempt - probably from fishing pressure - and that lighter everything is the way to go with pressured fish so maybe it just wouldn't work in the UK.

[KK]

I have a (slightly tongue in cheek!) personal reason to doubt the claim that barbed hooks don't penetrate as deeply or move about as much as a barbless...

 

The barbed bit of a set of size 8 "semi barbless" (daft name! ) trebles went clean into the back of my right thumb while I was fishing a Scottish loch many moons back.

 

It went in through the edge of my thumbnail (pretty tough things, thumbnails), and penetrated most of the way through my thumb in one swift move - there was no hint whatsoever that the barb was any sort of active hindrance (if you see what I mean!)

 

And trying to cut the hook wire so that I could push it right through and out the other side, the hook moved around plenty inside my thumb.

 

I eventually managed to cut the wire, and the remainder of the hook (about 2/3 of the thing) pulled though and out the ball of my thumb like a hot knife through butter...

 

 

OK, possibly not ideally analogous to a hook in a fish, but the experience was enough to persuade me that barbs do not always restrict penetration; that they can move about (I accept that the inside of my thumb is unlikely to be as tough as the lips of some fish) and - most importantly - if I was not prepared to pull the hook back out the way it came when it was stuck in me, why would I be prepared to inflict that treatment on a fish?

 

Of course a barbless hook in my thumb would have been popped back out without a second thought...

 

[ 24. August 2004, 08:30 PM: Message edited by: KK ]

[Newt]

KK:

OK, possibly not ideally analogous to a hook in a fish, but the experience was enough to persuade me that barbs do not always restrict penetration; that they can move about (I accept that the inside of my thumb is unlikely to be as tough as the lips of some fish) and - most importantly - if I was not prepared to pull the hook back out the way it came when it was stuck in me, why would I be prepared to inflict that treatment on a fish?

 

Of course a barbless hook in my thumb would have been popped back out without a second thought...

Several thoughts here.

 

If done correctly (and the technique is part of the Boy Scout Merit Badge in fishing so not really arcane) a barbed hook will pop right back out the way it entered. No more problem than barbless. IMO any adult angler should either know the method or make sure to fish with one who does. We have a fairly recent thread on the topic of hook removal - may have been in the sea section though.

 

I don't know about you but I am perfectly well prepared to do things to a fish that I would not do (or allow to be done) to myself. Live bait, dead bait, and fried/broiled/baked are things that come quickly to mind but I'm sure there are others.

[Guest allibee]

[KK]

Hi Newt,

 

you can argue 'til you're blue in the face that barbed hooks will come out as easily as they went in, but (with all due respect to the scouts):

 

1) if that was true, what advantage do they have over barbless as far as landing fish is concerned? and

 

2) would you pull a firmly embedded barbed hook out of your anatomy the way it went in?

 

In other words, If you find yourself in a hospital with just that problem, whose opinion are you going to take: the scout who says it'll come out by pulling and wriggling it a bit? Or the doctor who suggests cutting the hook and pushing it out?

 

And yes, I don't deny that I would also do things to fish that I wouldn't do to me: but where there is clear (to me) empirical evidence that a given action can't possibly be considered to be fish-friendly (within the obvious ambiguities that statement implies from an angling perspective), then I won't do it.

 

And that includes using barbed hooks.

 

Ever noticed that when you get an injection, there is a conspicuous absence of barbs on the needle?

 

Gotta wonder why...

 

 

(Oh - and Baronizer, this is still just gentle banter, not a heated discussion! )

 

[ 25. August 2004, 01:34 AM: Message edited by: KK ]

[Newt]

KK - love it (your rejoinder).

 

The removal techniques call for two hands so I can (have) done it to myself but only with a hook in a main body part and on the front side where I could easily get to it. I so seldom fish with barbless hooks (can't get them unless I order from some place that will ship but charge me way too much) that I've never put one through my hide but the removal of a barbed one, if done correctly, is pretty painless.

 

I live in an area where there is lots of fishing and if I were to go to the hospital with a hook that needed removal, the doctor would mostly likely opt to remove it without cutting (a la Boy Scout technique).

 

Back in my salad days when I was a Navy Corpsman (medic) and we used needles that were not disposable but got sharpened when they became dull, there would be the occasional one that did grow a barb when the point bent a little. Very painful. Since I usually gave rather than received the injections, I would occasionally get a victim (err, patient) that I knew well and disliked. In that case, the needle was very likely to receive a small tap of point to hard surface. Made a great instant barb.

 

I do have to admit to probably being a little less 'fish friendly' than you folks. Fish I catch have probably not been caught before and even the ones I release aren't really likely to be caught again so a little incidental damage isn't the problem it would be with fish that get caught frequently. I try not to do damage but don't try nearly as hard as a responsible UK angler needs to.

 

[ 25. August 2004, 01:44 AM: Message edited by: Newt ]