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Old 03-09-2007, 12:25 PM   #6
Mike P
Jiggin' Leper Lawyer
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: 61° 30′ 0″ N, 23° 46′ 0″ E
Posts: 8,158
Nope--only on the 4" Storm shads, and only because shorts tend to inhale them. Barbless hooks will penetrate a fish's gill just as easily as a barbed one, in any event. You never hurt a fish with trebles when the belly hook is lodged in the jaw. It's always the back hook that gets under their gill plate and does the damage, and barb or no barb, the damage is done. Barbless hooks don't prevent injury to bass--they only make it less likely that you'll injure yourself unhooking a thrashing fish.

What do you do when a big fish plays that dirty rotten trick of reversing direction and swimming right at you, and you're fishing barbless? Can you really reel fast enough to prevent any slack at all from getting into the line? A tiny bit of slack is all it'll take for that barbless hook to fall out

And, there is a big difference between a "true" barbless hook, and a standard hook with the barb filed or crushed down. True barbless hooks have a bend in them that helps the hook stay stuck. I've yet to see a bluefish that couldn't throw a hook with a crushed barb by jumping and shaking its head.

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