Pinch your barbs!

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A flexible rod will help keep from losing fish because it always maintains line tension.

My rods are all fairly flexible especially my hank parker spinning series rod. My abu garcia vendetta is stiff but you can feel the slightest pull on it. I love it.

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Hello; I have been pinching down the barbs on my hooks for a number of years now. I know that I lose a number of fish due to this. I also feel much more of a sense of accomplishment when I do land a fish on a barbless hook. I generally release the fish caught regardless and have seen most fish with very little injury with the barbless hooks. As stated by others, the barbless hook slides out without ripping flesh in either fish or fisherman.

Fishing with a friend one day and he managed to hook himself in the neck with a barbed hook. The best we could do on the water was cut the shank of the hook with nippers. he had the hook removed later.

I tie my own fly lures and have found some hooks manufactured with no barbs at all.

I completely agree with the statement above. :) This has been my experience too!
 
Let me tell you something, if you get a good sized barb which has not been pinched down, near a bone or major vein or nerve, you are not, and should NOT be ripping it out on the water. I had mine nick bone and nerve. The ER doctor had to cut it out, carefully. I still don't have feeling in the spot the hook entered on my finger.
 
I agree with this. You can just pull out small freshwater trebles most of the time but with most larger saltwater hooks you could really hurt yourself. I usually do catch and release use barbless hooks to lessen fish injury and I haven't noticed that I drop fish. Just like any fishing just keep tension when fighting it.
 
I agree with this. You can just pull out small freshwater trebles most of the time but with most larger saltwater hooks you could really hurt yourself. I usually do catch and release use barbless hooks to lessen fish injury and I haven't noticed that I drop fish. Just like any fishing just keep tension when fighting it.

Good points. It further challenges my fishing ability and does less damage to the fish and possibly me.
 
I've been hooked by a small freshwater hooks before, no biggy. You can cut the eyehole off with a pair of strong wire cutters and just pull the hook out from the other end if you want to avoid tearing the whole thing out. I do see the point about ssaltwater gear and the safety of the fish though.
 
On worm hooks Bass seem to spit them on the jump :(
I just got into circle hooks on lures even fish them barbless and they really hold the fish!

barb pea pic (2).JPGbarb circ lure pic.JPG "barbless as well" The Harmless Hook :)

barb pea pic (2).JPG

barb circ lure pic.JPG
 
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