Barbs

[bloom]

yesterday I caught several bass on a brand new swim jig, the first one was hooked from the insiide through the cheek plate, and I had a tough time getting it out. I'm sure the fish did not appreciate getting his face jerked around.  I took my pliers and pinched the barb down and caught several more with no issues.

Normally I pinch barbs on all my flies and panfish hooks, and I have taken the time to file large barbs into micro barbs. Wondering if anyone else goes barbless on bass lures?

[Cbump]

No. I Want It to be hard to remove. 

[Tennessee Boy]

No, if I wanted to be appreciated by fish I would stop fishing.

[A-Jay]

I can admit that I Really enjoy Fishing.

However in almost every instance, I'm pretty sure the fish do not.

Barbs or no barbs.

A-Jay

[Fishin Dad]

I was actually thinking the other day (right after losing two big fish on my chatterbait) that I want to look for a chatter with a massive barb on it.  I have had too many fish throw the bait this year so far.  Not sure what is going on.  This is  my confidence bait and usually has very good hook up to land ratio.   

[A-Jay]

10 minutes ago, Fishin Dad said:

I was actually thinking the other day (right after losing two big fish on my chatterbait) that I want to look for a chatter with a massive barb on it.  I have had too many fish throw the bait this year so far.  Not sure what is going on.  This is  my confidence bait and usually has very good hook up to land ratio.   

Perhaps a Treble hook trailer would get it done . . . 

#evenmorebarbs

A-Jay

[Fishin Dad]

1 minute ago, A-Jay said:

Perhaps a Treble hook trailer would get it done . . . 

#evenmorebarbs

A-Jay

Lol, I have actually considered putting a small treble in my trailer like a Magdraft.  One barb in the trailer and the other 2 for fish lips.  I like to fish chatters around vegetation at times.   This might be a problem.  I just hope I am in a little bad stretch.  I have a tourney tomorrow and really need to land fish.  

[Crow Horse]

Barbless for me and the bass. I feel that I'm injuring the bass enough already and the barb could very well make the injury even worse. Sometimes going barbless doesn't matter and I don't drop any fish. Other times I'm not as successful. So be it.

[Alex from GA]

Trebles I pinch the barbs. Worm hooks I pinch down just enough to hold the worm without slipping out.  Other single hook lures I'll leave the barbs. 

[KP Duty]

I have started to pinch down barbs.  I lost a chunk of my eyesight a few years ago, and it was difficult to remove hooks deep in the throat.  

[Friggs]

I have been going barbless after seeing what the barb is doing to them.  At one time I only went barbless on my small treble hook items. You can really mess a fish up when they are small. I think why people don't use barbless is either ignorance, or they simply don't care about the fish. They have no respect for it being a living, feeling animal. They feel it is more important for them to slightly lessen their chance of losing a fish than the health of the fish.  The other day I hooked a smaller bass and was using a barbless hook. It hooked the fish in the edge of the eye. If I had been using the barbed hook I know for sure he would have lost that eye. I would have felt awful if I had done that.

 

As a side note. Bass and other fishing organizations that run tournaments are going to go totally barbless according to some behind the scenes. If you fight a fish properly you will not lose many or any more than if you used a barbed hook.

 

Bottom line is what is more important to you? Keeping the fish healthy? Or make sure you can boat flip it into your boat and hold it for a minute or two before you let it go. If you are going to keep them, then it doesn't matter.

 

Bill

[OkobojiEagle]

Not entirely, but yes I fish quite a little for bass, as well as, walleye barbless.

[TLHSS]

I always fish barbless.  Good for me when it comes time to remove the hook. Good for the fish with less handling and less injury. 

[Cbump]

6 hours ago, Friggs said:

They feel it is more important for them to slightly lessen their chance of losing a fish than the health of the fish.

100% accurate

 Exactly why I go barbed. 

It’s funny to me that bass eat other fish and without a doubt get spined all the time by fins, eat crawfish and without a doubt get poked and pinched, eat snakes and without a doubt get bit, and you think you’re hurting that fish that much more with a barbed hook. Those ” living, feeling animals” do not have feelings like a human. 
Maybe fishing isn’t for you if you’re that worried about hurting a fish. 

[Bird]

Last thing I want to do is injure a fish but everytime you set a hook into a fishes mouth, you're leaving behind an injury.

 

Taking the time to unhook a fish and finding the path that the barb left would be much better than ripping and tearing in a haste.

 

[GreenPig]

I'm in the barbed club and I even eat bass occasionally. 

[MN Fisher]

^ What he said....

[Bankbeater]

I'm in the barbed camp.  I don't want to make it easy for the bass to come up out of the water and throw the hook.

[RB 77]

I fish a lake that requires barbless hooks and have seperate tackle trays with designated lures specifically for that lake. The barbs are pinched down or filed off. The game wardens do check and do write tickets. Yes, I lose a good amount of fish that I might not at other lakes, but it's the price to pay to play at that lake. It's understood and hurts a little less when we have fish jump us off and such. 

[Tennessee Boy]

8 hours ago, Friggs said:

Bottom line is what is more important to you? Keeping the fish healthy? Or make sure you can boat flip it into your boat and hold it for a minute or two before you let it go. 

Not losing the fish is by far more important to me.  It’s no big deal when a small fish gets off,  saves me the time it would take to unhook them.  Losing a big fish hurts bad.   I’m still haunted by the memory of losing a monster smallmouth in the 1990s.  I lost that fish because I was not paying attention to the details.  You never know when the fish of a lifetime is going take your bait.  I want a barb on my hook when that happens.  I don’t care if I can still land 95% of the bass I hook with a barbless hook.   I’m worried about one fish.

 

If fishing barbless make you feel good then I hope you enjoy that feeling.  I’m definitely not interested.
 

[Fallser]

I'm not concerned about the fish feeling pain.  I am concerned about me feeling pain.  I've had hooks in me three times.  The first two were with barbed hooks and required trips to the ER to remove them.  The third was barbless, and a fishing buddy was able to back it out with no problems.

I fish for bass about 85% of the time with a fly rod.  Barbless hooks are pretty much the rule in fly fishing.  I guess they don't want to hurt the wimpy trout.  I never debarbed the hooks on my lures until on one of my trips to Canada many years ago.  My buddy had a pike on and it spit the barbed hooks and the lure came flying back and it hit in the back of my fishing vest.  By the time I got the three treble hooks out of the vest, it looked like I'd been hit with a shotgun.  I've replaced the barbed treble hooks on my lures with barbless ones.

When fighting the fish you just have to keep the pressure on.  Easier to do with a spinning rod than a fly rod.  I'm less likely to lose a fish with a barbless treble hook than with a single barbless hooks.

 

[GetFishorDieTryin]

When I striper fish I smash all of the barbs and I don't notice any difference in landing % compared to when I dont smash the barbs.  Keep in mind the barbs on these hooks make the ones on FW bass hooks look like a joke, which is why they cause so much damage.  As long as there's pressure on that hook, its not likely to back out.  In 9 of 10 cases when I do lose a fish, Im confident that a barbed hook wouldn't have made a difference.  The only situation where a barb could make a difference is when a fish jumps.  I think 10% is a little high, but even if 20% of my losses could be curbed with a barb I would still crush them, as IMO a healthy fishery should come before the sport and personal benefit.  

The barbs on FW bass hooks have continually gotten smaller and smaller as time goes on.  I think the primary function of the barb is to retain the position of the plastic on the hook while minimizing damage to the bait.  Given my experience with the barbs on the siwash and inline plug hooks,  I cant see the absence/addition of the small barbs on FW worm hooks significantly decreasing/increasing landing ratio.

[WRB]

Gamakatsu and Owner hooks have small barbs and helps to penetrate easier yet stay put. Barbless hooks penetrate deeper into the hook bend and more organ damage may occur at times.

Large high barbs are harder to penetrate passed the barb and creates a bigger hole. 

Me I want the sharpe hooks with minimum size barbs and the reason I prefer Gamakatsu and Owner hooks.

I use pork rind often for jig trailers and learned to push the hook bend against the pork hole to allow the barb to slide out easily. Same technique works for fish and any other tissue.

Tom

[gim]

Interesting topic. I’ve always been in the barbed camp so I can’t comment on going barbless. Do the fish get injured simply because I’m using a barbed hook, or would they get injured regardless because they have a sharp piece of metal in their mouth? I think neither most of the time unless they are hooked deep or in the gills. They have pretty hard mouths. Species like pike and muskies have jaws of iron and they are full of teeth. Set the hook hard whether it has a barb or not, unhook it, and then release it as quick as safely possible.

[WRB]

There are 2 crucial organs that hooks can kill bass; through the rough of the mouth into the brain and into the base of the tongue where a artery is located. Gill raker injury are not always factual, yes some bleeding whappens but gills are tough. Hook into the brain is fatal and if a hook penetrates a tongue artery the bass bleeds out. Both brain and tongue injuries require deep hook penetration regardless if the hook is barbed or not.

Tom