Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
If you’re around hooks long enough, sooner or later your going to, well, “get hooked.” Being in the fishing business unfortunately seems to have me impaled on the pointy-end of a hook almost on a daily basis. Fortunately, most of the hookings are little more than just minor “flesh wounds” with the hook not penetrating up to the barb. Only on a few occasions have I had the misfortune to be hooked deeply enough that the it wasn’t quickly and easily backed out the opposite way it went in. The scariest occurred a bunch of years ago when we found a new feature of a double-hook rig. We had a 100 lb. shark impaled on one hook and my upper arm on the other. Thank goodness for first mates with sharp pliers!
Most deep hookings are much less dramatic and take the form of a bottom-fishing hook in the thumb or a treble hook from your fishing partner’s favorite lure stuck in the back of your neck. While I’m on the subject, here’s an important safety tip from a real-life fishing guide; “On a small boat, do not allow your fishing partner to be between you and where they intend to cast.” There are anglers out there who, in the course of their day, will impale more objects behind them than they will in front of them. If you happen to be behind them – well…!
If you’ve never had the pleasure of having a hook imbedded past the barb in any part of your person, let me tell you, it ain’t no treat! Besides the “shark incident”, every other time it’s happened to me I’ve been fortunate in that the (1/0 or 2/0) hooks have been on the small side of the saltwater scale. I’ve learned that the pain one enjoys as the hook goes in is nothing compared to how it feels when you attempt to back one out that’s being held in place by a barb. Eeeeeouch! Let me tell you something, those little barbs do a heck of a job of holding a hook in place and if you think you can just pry one out of your thumb the same way you’ve been plucking them out of fish all these years – think again. Sure, if you take a shot of whiskey, put a lead bullet between your teeth and yank hard and fast it’ll come out, but so will a nice chunk of “your” meat with it! Like I said, those little barbs do their job quite well.
Which finally brings me to the point (excuse the pun) of this article and that would be “barbless hooks”. Probably for most anglers the only reason they might consider using barbless hooks is because they’re fishing in a catch-and-release zone where regulations require it. But a lot of fishermen are finding these days that there are times when going barbless has advantages that go beyond keeping the law off your back and making it easier to extract a hook from your neck.
Before I go further, let me start by dispelling one myth about fishing with barbless hooks: A hook with no barb WILL NOT immediately fall out of a fish’s mouth the second an angler allows that fish little slack line. Water pressure on the line will almost always provide enough tension on the hook to keep it in place and if it's a circle hook there is almost no chance that it will come out on its own because the design of the hook requires that it be rotated to be removed. While having no barb on a J-hook can slightly increase the chance for pulling a hook and losing a fish, for “normal” size fish where the fight time is only a few minutes, the increased risk of loss is very minimal and because they have a thinner profile, hooks without barbs penetrate more easily and, therefore, may actually "hook" more fish than barbed hooks.
The best time to consider doing away with barbs is anytime there’s a lot of catch-and-releasing going on and with all the snapper bluefish, small stripers, undersized flounder and little sea bass being caught right now in both the ocean and the bay, this is a good time to consider eliminating some barbs. Anglers accustomed to using artificial lures that bristle with two or more needle sharp treble-hooks know very well how being able to remove the hook(s) quickly and easily will speed up the de-hooking process. If you’ve ever had the fun of trying to unhook a Rattle Trap (armed with two-treble hooks) from the mouth of a slimy, shaking, snapping bluefish (armed with hundreds of teeth), you can appreciate any assist in safely removing the hooks.
By the way, don’t worry about “buying” barbless hooks. They’re available, but no one carries them. Just use your pliers and mash down the barb on your existing hooks. Also, while barbless hooks always work on artificials, they can present a problem when using natural-bait which will sometimes want to slip off the hook before the fish has a chance to eat it. This can sometimes be overcome by using string or a rubber band to hold the bait in place.
So the next time you find yourself in the middle of a hot bite where fish are snapping and hooks are flying, grab your pliers and make a little alteration to the pointy end of your hooks. You might just be happily surprised at the results, particularly if one of the hooks ends up being impaled in the “wrong” kind of meat!
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center. During the winter months, Capt. Mark runs charters in the Lower Keys.
