I'm a bit concerned about my first trip, especially the barbless regulations...

I'm not concerned about catching fish without live bait. I'm actually sorta excited about not dragging leaches around...

But the barbless...

I have a very well thought-out tackel box that I've taken to the BW. Now, I have to convert everything to barbless...

Lures with trebel hooks seem like a little work but not too bad.

What about
- tube jigheads
- weighted belly hooks for swimbaits
- worm hooks for Zulu's

Can I just pinch down the barbs?

Mad Angler...

You're in luck. You can just pinch down the barb(s) on the lure you're using and you're legal. If a ranger would happen to come along and check your lures, he'll only be inspecting the lure attached to your line.

I purchased a bunch of barbless trebles from BWJ and they work great. Last summer, I just pinched the barbs on new lures I bought.

Haven't noticed any loss in hooking and landing fish with trebles. However, I have found that single barbless hook lures (e.g., jigs, spinnerbaits, etc) make it noticably tougher to actually land trophy smallmouth. I'm not a fly fisherman, but I wonder if it's similar to the challenge of landing say a trout or smallmouth on a barbless fly or popper.

I purchased barbless trebles from The BWJournal and installed them on all my lures.....sorta a winter therapy session....they work great!

Jackfish has good advice. The rules state only the lure you are using has to be barbless. If you are like me you only use about 10% of the lures you bring :) so switching them all out is a lot of extra work.

I have soem of the eagle claw barbless hooks that Red Rock and the Boundary Waters Journal sell. They are nice---don't think they are really needed though. I put them on my Canoe only lures.

For crank baits there was really no measurable difference in loss of fish. Jigs and other single hook items could be tougher--but the only increase I noted was when those big smallies go airborne--I seemed to lose more than I usually do---I just gotta learn to keep the line tighter better when playing them I guess.

I have heard others theorize that using a superline like fireline, powerpro or Spiderline might make it tougher to land fish. With no stretch in the line it is harder to keep it tight and might give the fish enough room to work an unbarbed hook out easier. Something to keep in mind when going barbless.

T

Hi, Tim. Are you the author of the recent BWJ article re trolling for trout...excellent reading...been doing the same thing for a couple years now.

It sounds counter-intuitive that superlines make it tougher to land fish cause you can't keep the line tight...I only fish with mono, but I'd think that because superlines don't stretch much it'd be easier to keep the line tight? Or am I just too slow to understand?...wouldn't be the first time...

Thanks for noticing. Yeah I did submit that trout article and was lucky enough to get it published.

I don't use superline so it is not from experience, but what I was told was that when a fish pulls on the line mono stretches and superline does not or much less so. When the fish struggles shaking their head for example, the superline slackens ever so slightly if the fish happens to move towards the angler quickly---while mono--since it stretches just sort of bonces back--thus keeping the line tighter the whole time. When that superline slackens slightly it is easier to dislodge a barbless hook. If you have barbed hooks wouldn't be enough to make a difference but with Barbless the stretch factor in mono could actually help keep more consistent tension on the hook---thus there is more room for error with mono than superline.

Don't think of it as mono keeping the line tighter, but as the stretch in mono helping to keep the tension more even during the entire time you are fighting the fish. Makes sense to me, but that doesn't mean it is true.

I use mono because I bring my wife on trips and I could see her trying to grab the line and slicing her finger with a superline. More injury prevention than anything :)

T

You're too modest, Tim. I might be too old and decrepid(sp?) to notice the difference between mono and superlines. And I've sliced at least 2 digits on superline. BTW, my wife stays home for her own injury protection...or perhaps mine...funny...

quote PineKnot: "You're too modest, Tim. I might be too old and decrepid(sp?) to notice the difference between mono and superlines. And I've sliced at least 2 digits on superline. BTW, my wife stays home for her own injury protection...or perhaps mine...funny...
"

I've sliced my digits with superline too. When walleye jigging I got into a bad habit as a kid (probably from having such cheap gear/rods) of putting a finger on the line to feel the bite. Then I'd still have my finger on the line when I 'd go to set the hook---no big deal with mono--but the first time I did that with fireline I about cut myself to the bone---ouch---I guess pain is a good teacher :) I stopped doing that.

As you said I think a lot of people fish for trout like I do---just like you, but I also am amazed by how many people who don't think it would work well. How I came to write the article was I sent in a bunch of my photos to the BWJ for publication to try to get a little extra cash. Stu emailed me back and asked how I caught them. I emailed him my explanation and he said he had never tried that. THen asked me to write an article for the BWJ as he thought others might be interested trying another method. Nice to do something fun and make some extra cash for it too.

T

I use mono and braid. Braid only for bottom bumping jigs and stuff that you need a good hookset on. Agree with timatkn in that mono makes it less likely for the fish to get slack in your line due to the stretch. However, maybe the braid makes up for it by giving you a better hook set with a single hook lure? Haven't given fluorocarbon line a good try yet but maybe it would be a good compromise? Food for thought.

went to barbless on lake trout and I love it. I lose maybe 1 out 15 that I otherwise would of landed. But now with a dip net you do not worry about tangled hooks so much and fish mortality is definitely less. It is the only way to go if you practice any catch and release. Also big benefit is when you hook yourself-the catch and release is so much easier.

quote PINETREE: " do not worry about tangled hooks so much and fish mortality is definitely less. It is the only way to go if you practice any catch and release. Also big benefit is when you hook yourself-the catch and release is so much easier."

Actually the vast majority of the research available refutes Barbless hooks result in lower hooking mortality than Barbed hooks. Several states including Colorado have been thinking about no longer requiring barbless hooks on trout streams based on the mounting evidence. The original barbless rules were based on common thought that it is easier to unhook a fish off barbed hooks so a higher percentage of fish must survive (makes sense to me) BUT they never researched it---now that they have it has been proven relatively false.

When Quetico Park adopted the policy Robin Reilly admitted as much in an interview when confronted with the research---he backed tracked and said well the real reason is to reduce wilderness rescue costs. I guess they were getting at least one to two calls from Boy Scout groups (inexperienced fisherman) wanting to be flown out for hooks embedded into them :)

article
lierature review--author still recommends barbless though
list of literature

Why they don't work for reducing mortality is subject to theory. With barbless hooks you can get better hook sets so the hooks imbed deeper and can damage arteries where as a barbed hook does more superficial damage--looks worse but easier for the fish to recover from. If the crank bait is inhaled the deeper hookset of a barbless can cause more damage to the gills. So after reading most of the research---barbless easier to remove part and less fish handling can reduce fish mortality but is offset by the deeper imbedding of unbarbed hooks. Statistically speaking there is no difference. Sometimes barbless helps fish mortality sometimes it makes it worse. The best studies looked at delayed mortality.

With all that being said it is the law and I personally had switched over to barbless before the rule change (except jigs) for personal safety. I just posted all of this because it fascinates me and to me flies in the face of what one would consider common sense after using barbless---it is easier to release fish--they should have a lower mortality---but they just don't....it just depends.

T

timatkn is correct.
The biggest reason for fish dying after release is the way in which they are handled, and has little to do with barb or barbless hooks.
The slime layer on fish is critical and if you wie this off and or mis-handle them then you wipe off to much slime layer and it sort of breaks there protection layer and opens them up to disease and problems. My youngest son Dan is a fisheries biologist and says that way more fish are mis handled and die then for any other reason.
It is sad because we all fish at one time or another on slot limit lakes or catch and release fish. We need to be cognisant of the handling and we will save much more of the resource for future catching.
SunCatcher

After a couple of embedded hook incidents, I began pinching down the barbs on all my treble hooks. I do it for me and the people I fish with. I agree, barbless hooks are only a very small part of the C&R equation.