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BARBED HOOKS!!!!!!!!


Babar

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From a personal point of view I have used barbless for many years. I found with barbed hooks that the problems caused by deep hooking, especially with perch, caused more damage when trying to retrieve a hook. Try hooking your favourite jumper with a barbed hook and see how much damage it causes taking it out. I can see the point that a barbless may come unseated and go in again at a different angle but surely with bad playing of the fish it is more likely to come out altogether! Also I don't see how a barbless penetrates deeper. Are people trying to say that the tiny bit of extra thickness of a barbed means that doesn't go in as far? Surely the sharpness of the hook and the strike will, barbed or not, determine how deep it goes.

I sometimes wonder if people use the argument against barbless as an excuse to use hooks that give them more chance of landing the fish. I seem to have sat on the bank so many times with a fish hooked in the lip with a barbed, struggling to pull it out and causing bleeding when I know a barbless would just slip straight out. I would rather lose a few fish than keep going through this. Remember, the barb is there to stop the hook coming out, this doesn't suddenly change when the fish is on the bank! I agree that a good disgorger or forceps are essential but the nature of the barbed hook means these tools make no difference to this!

Its seems to me that the very nature of the barb is that the fish is actually hooked both ways...the point of the hook penetrates the fish to hold it whilst pulling it in, and the barb hooks in to stop the hook coming out. Then it follows that taking the hook out must surely cause the fish further damage in that the barb must be dragged back through the flesh to get the hook out. With a barbless there is no resistance!

At the end of the day it's down to personal choice, I certainly wouldn't refuse to fish with someone who uses barbed hooks but I would tell them my opinion as I am here!

 

Colin

I am dyslexic of Borg, refistance is sutile.............your ass will be laminated!

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Also further to the above, I would think that if a fish snapped you off it is more likely to be able to shed a barbless hook.

My missis also came up with a valid point. It's a sad fact of life but we always see discarded and lost tackle and any wildlife, i.e. swans, would have more trouble getting a barbed hook out.

 

Colin

I am dyslexic of Borg, refistance is sutile.............your ass will be laminated!

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I can see the advantage of barbless in smaller sizes than a ten but to be honest I dont do any tiddle-bashing anymore.

 

I do use Barbless Trebles for my Piking for ease of unhooking.

 

I will not however use Barbless hooks for Carp or Barbel Fishing due to the damage I have seen caused.

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Some years ago I was also of the opinion that barbed and barbless hooks should both penetrate equally. However, like a number of other experienced perch anglers, I found that barbless hooks were causing some perch deaths. So what could the problem be?

 

At the time I was in the tackle trade and so talked about the matter with a hook manufacturer.

 

They pointed out that hooks often go in at an angle and thus, although the distance penetrated is the same, the point of the hook doesn't always reach that far below the surface of the skin.

 

However the angle can subsequently change, especially during the playing of the fish. A barbed hook would tend to stay in the same place and at the same angle. On the other hand a barbless one would be more likely to move and thus the angle change, with the point of the hook possibly ending up further from the surface.

 

Additionally, as barbless hooks can move about more easily, they would be more likely to pierce vital organs anyway.

 

This suggestion seemed to be a logical explanation. However, whatever the reason, what to me is more important is results in the field - and these showed that barbless hooks are not the best for perch.

 

Only a tiny barb seems to be needed, and in fact the pattern of hook I prefer for perch fishing has a miniscule one. In fact the barb on the size 6 is about the same size as a normal microbarbed size 16!

Wingham Specimen Coarse & Carp Syndicates www.winghamfisheries.co.uk Beautiful, peaceful, little fished gravel pit syndicates in Kent with very big fish. 2017 Forum Fish-In Sat May 6 to Mon May 8. Articles http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/steveburke.htm Index of all my articles on Angler's Net

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Probably because there are a lot of Noddys and Youngsters who havent the first idea how to remove a barbed hook without pulling the lips off the fish.

 

As I said I can see the advantage in smaller sizes but on specimen fisheries where the majority know what they're doing I feel it's a big mistake.

 

Apart from Pike Fishing I dont think Barbless hooks have a place in Specimen Angling.

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I agree that for larger fish and when using larger hooks there is a case for using a microbarb. I don't have a problem taking a hook out when the fish has a large mouth like a carp or a chub. But with small fish and when using small hooks i really belive that barbless cause less damage to the fish at the time of unhooking and this is when the fish is most vunerable.

take a look at my blog

http://chubcatcher.blogspot.co.uk/

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Guest sslatter

I’m still not convinced that barbed cause less harm than barbless. I still think that much of the mouth damage one hears of today stems from the use of over-heavy mono and/or braid. Braid in particular I am sceptical of. A line that has no stretch causes just one thing: extra stress at the two extremes of the line—at the rod end, and at the hookhold end. Now the rod end can take it, but the hookhold end? Under that extra stress? There’s only one thing that will happen—tears in the fish mouth. And for those who may answer that they use shock leaders, stretch hooklengths etc and therefore the extra stress is compensated, all I can say is that if braid/heavy line + shock leader= the same stress factors as straight mono, then why use it in the first place? Even with shock leaders, braid in particular imparts more stress at the fish end than mono set-ups. This current trend, coupled with the style of many of today’s fishermen that I wrote about before, i.e. that of ‘bullying’ fish and playing them off a highly-set clutch to match the b.s. of the braid/heavy line, instead of ‘playing’ a fish in the traditional style, is, I’m sure, responsible for far more damage to fish than any barbless hook per se.

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I've said it on this thread and I've said it before, there are so many variables involved.

 

For example, the pattern. There is more potential for a hook with a straight point to tear on entry as opposed to an in-turned hook point which goes in through rotation, causing far less damage. (see diagram below)

 

HP.jpg

 

As for the barb Vs barbless debate, I will continue to use micro-barbed and barbed (crushed if too big) over barbless because of what I have seen and heard.

We can't forget that barbless hooks where designed for the match fisherman in mind, for use on smaller fish. Well that's fine by me, but IMO the bigger fish deserve a micro-barb at least.

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