Barbless hooks - Inflict more damage!?!

[Biology]

And I bet they are completely unaware that they're doing anything wrong...

[rrw35]

Yes I remember 42, I was the same... about 45 I started using and needing $2 shop glasses.

Oh no, in two years i'm going to be a specky ba stard.

[Daniel]

You're supposed to increase the number by one as each year passes Ryan. Not take one off :p

[pyko]

My view is that where the fish is hooked is more important than whether the hook is barbless or not.

Effect of Hook Type on Mortality, Trauma, and Capture Efficiency of Wild, Stream-Resident Trout Caught by Active Baitfishing:

"Mortality at 72 h (2– 7%), anatomical hooking location (superficial or deep), and eye damage (5% of captures) in brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis did not differ between hook types. However, brook trout that were deeply hooked were more likely to die when barbed hooks were used. Mortality and eye damage in brown trout Salmo trutta were similarly low, but sample sizes were insufficient for comparison of hook types. Hook types did not differ significantly in terms of hooking efficiency, frequency of fish escape after hooking, or the mean unhooking time in which fish were held out of water."

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1577/M02-172.1

Hiya,

Sorry to keep this old pot boiling, but Silver, I found this which refers to the paper you quote from & seems to be slightly contradictory; certainly in terms of the mortality rate from different types of hook.

I'm no scientist, so statistically maybe the difference between 1.76% and 5.86% is inconsequential, but it would certainly give me food for thought...

Al

"A common management approach to directly control trout fishing mortality is a catch-and-release-only regulation. This is typically used in conjunction with a prohibition on the use of natural bait and often a requirement to use single barbless hooks or only fly-fishing gear. The intent is to lower, to the extent possible, the chance that exists for hooking or handling mortality each time an individual fish is hooked and released. The key element is a bait prohibition, because bait use can result in a 30-50% mortality rate per encounter. Thus, in an intensive fishery where individual fish can be hooked and released up to 10 times per year, allowing the use of bait is incompatible.

However, in our analysis, we found that anatomical position of hooking was critical and that adult steelhead were seldom hooked in a critical injury area even when bait was used. Thus, a bait restriction is not essential, in most cases, for a successful catch-and-release fishery on adult steelhead (a notable exception would be summer-run steelhead, which are stressed by higher water temperatures). Restrictions on the use of bait are essential, however, for managing any trout population of multiple age-classes.

Adding restrictions requiring single hooks, barbless hooks, or flies can provide only relatively small incremental improvements in trout survival. However, managers have realized that these can become important in situations where individual fish are hooked many times. The chance of mortality from a single hooking event was examined for various unweighted combinations of terminal gear from our compilation of research results."

The categories and single-event losses were as follows:

Barbless hooks with flies, 1.76%
All barbless hooks (with flies or lures), 2.16% Barbless hooks with lures, 3.00% All hooks with flies, 3.34% Barbed hooks with flies, 3.88%
All barbed hooks, 5.86% All lures, 6.56% Barbed hooks with lures, 6.86%


Sam Wright (1992): Guidelines for Selecting Regulations to Manage Open- Access Fisheries for Natural Populations of Anadromous and Resident Trout in Stream Habitats, North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 12:3, 517-527

[Biology]

Interesting stuff pyko ... the significance of % stats depends on the numbers in part. The 5.1% difference between the two extremes above is negligible if we're talking a population measured in tens, extend that to thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands and the quantum difference becomes dramatic. That aside, a qualitative conclusion to the above would be flies tied on barbless hooks are the least damaging... other data sets may draw a different conclusion.

Cheers, Andy

[pyko]

Hi Andy,

Thanks, it helps to have an expert elucidate!

I appreciate that, but even at an individual level; where an angler has experience of damaging fish with barbs - as opposed to without. Then surely you've got to realise that's better. So whether it's tens of thousands of fish, or one, the argument for the individual is the same.
(I know we're agreeing here. )

That make sense?

Ultimately, Silver seems to say that there's no definitive evidence that barbed hooks cause more damage/stress to fish; well by this account alone, never mind the various (if not scientific) evidence from our members; then that certainly seems to say barbed hooks do.

Personally, it's more than enough to make me use barbless.
Al

[wjc]

Effect of Hook Type on Mortality, Trauma, and Capture Efficiency of Wild, Stream-Resident Trout Caught by Active Baitfishing:

"Mortality at 72 h (2– 7%), anatomical hooking location (superficial or deep), and eye damage (5% of captures) in brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis did not differ between hook types.

It appears that with baitfishing, the anatomical hooking location is the chief culprit resulting in a 5% greater mortality as would be expected. However, they then say those figures did not vary between hook types.

Since they did not mention the hook types I'd bet 25 to one that none of them were using proper circle hooks, as is the law in the Gulf of Mexico and Allantic when fishing for reef fish. Further, the circle hooks have to be non-stainless, non-offset circles. One of my buddies that guided a lot of live bait tarpon fishermen went to them years ago and said the hookup rate with bait was even better than with standard J hooks. I'd personally like to see that rule extended to all bait fishing. Even the billfish tournaments are required to use them now.

Another law we also must comply with is to have onboard and use a "venting tool" when reef fishing with bait. This is to let the expanded air from ruptured swim bladders out of the fishes' peritoneum caused by pulling fish up from deep below the surface. Even though no-one knows whether it works or not, we still must do it when releasing fish outside the slot limit.

The reasoning is that since the ruptured bladder has forced the stomach out the fish's mouth puffed up like a balloon and he can't swim to the bottom, they would die if thrown back like that, since they just bob around on the top, unable to swim down - then at least by sucking the air out they can get back down to depth.

The scientists "HOPE" that the fish will then be able and smart enough to re-swallow their stomachs (without chewing on them): Hope that their air-bladders will heal quickly: Hope that jabbing a big needle into their peritoneum and sucking out the air didn't introduce infection or damage something else.

To me, this is insanity, and I think they should be kept even if they are out of the slot llimit and counted toward the bag limit. Besides, if they have been caught at real depths, their eyes are popping out of their heads as well - the fish rule makers never mention that part. Not being a fish doctor, I don't know if those ones are permanently blind or not.

Now there is another method that the Aussies have come up with that's very simple, and I've read has been checked out as best as possible by scuba divers over there who say it works. That is to throw them back in quickly with a very heavy weight attached to a barbless hook, hooked from the outside of their upper jaw to the inside and also with a line attached to the hook bend from a stout boat rod. They freeline the boat rod, and after the weight hits bottom, they pull the hook out and retrieve their heavy weight. The Aussies have been doing his for a long time, and you'd think a reasonable study could be done here if there has not been a thorough one done there on this release technique.

This makes sense to me from both from a physics perspective and a common sense one, and I know that guys here are using that method and breaking our laws while doing it, as I would if I did that kind of fishing.

My point is that this law with the big needle and syringe is based on nothing but hopes and guesses - even a worse situation than barb vs. barbless.

So, back to the point, though I use pinch barbed hooks for a bunch of different species, mainly to make it easier to remove the hook, I agree with Silver that it should not be a law forced on everyone unless it's proven by really good science to make a significant difference.

I've not caught all trout species, but have caught a whole lot of brookies, browns and quite a few cutthroats with barbed hooks when younger, and have never ripped the jaws off any of them. But all I fished for them with was bamboo, not graphite.

Nonetheless, to me that sounds like the work of spinning rod guys used to bass fishing and has more to do with their hook set, hook size and fighting technique than the barb. Some of those guys set hooks like they're trying to roll over a volkswagon.

Paul, I have wondered about hook design too, particularly "cutting point" versus "round" point as far as eroding the hole bigger during a fight. I think the "round" point will cause less damage (spreading rather than cutting tissue) and switched to the more round Gamakatsu's from Owners this past spring for that reason, once I started tying my own flies again. I will know more (hopefully) by this coming summer. I don't even know if there is an option with small hooks.

Cheers,
Jim

[Colo-fishin]

I wrote a letter to the state of colorado, (with some quite lofty hopes i might add....) a while back, asking.... more like pleading, that the state should mandate a class session for all people trying to purchase a fishing lisence.
For christ's sake, if you have to take classes for a month of tuesday nights to get a hunting lisence and learn gun safety, i think it should certainly be required that people learn even a little about fish before they set off fishing.

even 20 minutes with a park ranger or DOW officer would help leagues with educating people on not just how badly irresponsible fishing can damage a fishery, but about the ecology in general.

Believe me, i'm all for keeping a few fish, (pan fish only ) and even fishing with barbs if you so choose. I personally fish only barbless hooks... even if i have to crimp em' down on a fresh fly. I say do what you like but for gods sake, barbless is so much easier. even with a spare 15 minutes and a pair of glove pliers or hemostats and a few beers some evening will really help out.

( After taking a trip down to Navajo Lake in northern New Mexico last summer, I saw a couple guys catch a golden trout that had to be a record. upon them releasing it, I watched in horror as the fish bled profusley from its gills as the fellas yanked their lure from it's head, and set it back in the water as if everything was peachy...
after getting back to camp and several slugs of black bush i proceeded to dig up every single fly from every box i had, and crimp every barb down.)


fish on all, and be concious of how we effect all fisheries

[Biology]

Ahhhh, the Black Bush..... used to sip one every Friday evening, with a drop of Co. Antrim tap water

[Paul Arden]

I don't think there's any bush in Hungary. Which I think is a good thing.