This post was last updated on December 3rd, 2022 at 07:42 pm

The Use of Barbless Hooks Can be Much Easier on You and the Trout

In some areas it actually the law to use barbless hooks, Most places it is not however. That doesn’t mean that you cannot trim the barbs off your hooks. If you have ever had a hook in your body somewhere you can certainly appreciate how easy they come out when they are barbless. The trout will also appreciate it. The fact is, when removing a barbed hook it can tear the fishes mouth quite badly. Some of the larger hooks tend to have extremely large barbs, way bigger than they really need in my opinion. You can pinch the barbs slightly using pliers or hemostats and just tone them down a little.

In order to not be a hypocrite, I will admit that I usually leave most of my barbs on my flies. I am a fishing guide and I tend to take a lot of new fisherman on the river. If you cannot keep proper tension on the fish with barbless hooks, the fish will escape easily. When I am personally fishing I will often crimp my barbs for not only the convenience of removing the hook, but because it is a lot less pain that the trout will have to suffer through.
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If you have trouble keeping proper tension and losing fish while using the barbless hook, perhaps you could watch this video below and learn how to keep adequate tension on the fish after your hookset.