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Barbel conservation thoughts?

Graham Young said:
That horrendous damage looks to me to be a combination of very poor unhooking skills and many recaptures, has the water got a ruling on hooks Howard?
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I would agree Graham and I deliberately haven't pointed the finger at one specific cause because I don't know. There is a barbless hook only rule but who knows what level of general care anglers take. The other fish caught that day also showed signs of mouth damage. It's always dangerous to generalise, but I would say that in my personal experience, the majority of carp I have caught from commercials have mouth damage.
 
Andrew Boyne said:
I always use barbed for big powerfull fish like Barbel, always barbless for small silvers ( bait catching! :) ). How many times do you need to hear it Russell before the penny drops and you do a bit of research on the subject? :rolleyes:
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Many thanks for the patronizing post, much appreciated, but since you did post it i've been trying to find articles in magazines and on the internet about the perils of barbless and the only things i can find are old posts on various forums written by keyboard warriors who don't use barbless.
All the pics on this thread are from really unfortunate carp who have happened to be stocked into a commercial fishery where the aim seems to be pack you keepnet as tight as you can and i feel really sorry for these fish and as a consequence i would not go near these places.
Why does the Wye And Usk Foundation, along with loads of other fisheries, have a barbless rule, do you know better than the people who run these places.
Perhaps Mr Boyne you could post an article or a paper on the bad effects a barbless hook has in comparison to a barbed.
 
After trying to un hook a barbel with a Mugga hook, the barb was massive i moved onto micrbarbed and never looked back. Personally i think barbless do mor damage because of the ease a hook point can move in a fishes mouth not being restrained by the barb but i wouldn't worry about it too much. Only thing that bothers me is leaving baited hooks in the water following a break either by fishing to snags or anglers being at fault.
 
Graham i am not convinced that is evidence just opinion which is what we have here...the part I am struggling with is the hook coming out and moving around - how does it do this if we have constant pressure and if it does come out how come it is not ejected? My 2p is that on fisheries where fish are caught time and again whatever is used will lead to damage over time allied with poor unhooking technique. i remember (just) catching small perch/bootlaces and barbed hooks been a nightmare to disgorge so it might be also about size?
 
This is the sort of thing someone doing a doctorate in fishery science should be looking into and producing some sort of scientific paper.Any takers, someone at Sparsholt perhaps.
 
I can't help but think that its probably more sensible to look at the whole system rather than one area in isolation e.g. a barb. The way that fish are played or rather the skill of the angler, the size of the hook, the action of the rod and the amount of stretch in the mainline are likely to be just as much of a causal factor in mouth damage then the presence of a barb.

I've witnessed some pretty hideous examples of fish being practically skull-dragged onto the bank. In those situations I can't believe that it matters whether or not the hook is barbed or not.

I'm often amazed (and shocked) when I see the way some anglers play fish, not that I'm advocating fannying around and over-playing fish unnecessarily, but little things like not slackenining off the clutch when the fish is under the rod-tip or those anglers that when they get the fishes head-up practically pull it into the net rather than using the flow.

Personally I'm not a fan of big hooks or braided mainline, but that's just my opinion.

Has anyone on here actually witnessed barbel with mouth damage?
 
Joe Winstanley said:
I can't help but think that its probably more sensible to look at the whole system rather than one area in isolation e.g. a barb. The way that fish are played or rather the skill of the angler, the size of the hook, the action of the rod and the amount of stretch in the mainline are likely to be just as much of a causal factor in mouth damage then the presence of a barb.

I've witnessed some pretty hideous examples of fish being practically skull-dragged onto the bank. In those situations I can't believe that it matters whether or not the hook is barbed or not.

I'm often amazed (and shocked) when I see the way some anglers play fish, not that I'm advocating fannying around and over-playing fish unnecessarily, but little things like not slackenining off the clutch when the fish is under the rod-tip or those anglers that when they get the fishes head-up practically pull it into the net rather than using the flow.

Personally I'm not a fan of big hooks or braided mainline, but that's just my opinion.

Has anyone on here actually witnessed barbel with mouth damage?
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I have caught Barbel with mouth damage from previous captures, it usualy consisted of the redness that is nearly always present from where a hook has taken hold previously but along with that there has sometimes been a tear, i havent seen it many times and obviously have no idea whether the hook was barbed or not, this was on a very heavily fished stretch of the Trent that i no longer fish.
 
Paul. Yes it's a subjective issue.

However personally I never mentioned about a hook coming out and moving around. Just that a barbless will penetrate the flesh deeper under pressure and tear flesh more easily.

I accept that barbless CAN in most cases be removed more easily.

Anyone fished Thorpe Lea? The fish from there came from a barbless match pit. Cemex I believe.
As the fish nearly all had horrific mouth damage this was a precursor to rule change to barbed hooks.

Saying that. Fish bolting whilst dragging big leads against a hard set baitrunner and interrupting a snooze would have an effect whatever hook was used.

Russell started the thread indicating his use of barbless hooks was more considerate. I don't happen to agree from experience and logic.
 
Graham Elliott said:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&s...wAsD_vrwu99sPvMtQ&sig2=zLYPiYuaW0RVgWXtfGxI4Q

There you are Russell. Some watching for you.
Look and......
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Mr Elliot, once again thank you for your patronizing post, this place is full of them.
The video you post has not, in my opinion, helped your argument at all, it's like this forum just in video form. It's just three blokes sitting on a bank talking about why they want to use barbed hooks and it eventually comes out that really it's all about feeling more secure with barbed hooks and not loosing "a fish of a life time", and bad mouthing barbless hooks, plus, who are they?? If they were a group of respected anglers who has looked into it and written a article/paper about it it would carry more weight,instead of just like sniping on a forum.
Plus Mr Elliot I didn't start the thread, someone else did.
 
Mr Elliot, once again thank you for your patronizing post, this place is full of them.
The video you post has not, in my opinion, helped your argument at all, it's like this forum just in video form. It's just three blokes sitting on a bank talking about why they want to use barbed hooks and it eventually comes out that really it's all about feeling more secure with barbed hooks and not loosing "a fish of a life time", and bad mouthing barbless hooks, plus, who are they?? If they were a group of respected anglers who has looked into it and written a article/paper about it it would carry more weight,instead of just like sniping on a forum.
Plus Mr Elliot I didn't start the thread, someone else did.
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To be blunt Russell, Graham has a point, I don't think anyone is trying to be so definitive here as you imagine - we are simply discussing types of hooks on a fishing thread hopefully with the wellbeing of fish at heart.
 
asi said before is there anyone at all witnessed the terrible mouth damage we see today before barbless hooks became readily available, i have been carp and barbel fishing for around 56 years now and never saw any evidence of mouth damage back in the late 50s /early 60s
 
Russell Emms said:
Mr Elliot, once again thank you for your patronizing post, this place is full of them.
The video you post has not, in my opinion, helped your argument at all, it's like this forum just in video form. It's just three blokes sitting on a bank talking about why they want to use barbed hooks and it eventually comes out that really it's all about feeling more secure with barbed hooks and not loosing "a fish of a life time", and bad mouthing barbless hooks, plus, who are they?? If they were a group of respected anglers who has looked into it and written a article/paper about it it would carry more weight,instead of just like sniping on a forum.
Plus Mr Elliot I didn't start the thread, someone else did.
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Russell, you seem keen to dismiss points of view different to your own as having no solid facts and/or "top" anglers to back them up. So what do you have to offer to support your opinion that is so much more valid? Given the apparent, and I think accurrate, negative aspects to both barbed and barbless, I would never use a barbless hook for big fish.
 
I think the Cemex rule, when it was still going, that size 16 or smaller could be Barbed or Barbless, larger than 16 it had to be Barbed was a sensible approach but then i prefer barbed. Commercials are a bit of a mess as they see a lot of people with no angling experience who turn up with 3 1/2 tc rods, 20lb line and just haul fish out, whatever hook you use will damage as has already been said.
I would suspect that a poll of the river and national record holders of the last 10 years would show mot if not all were on barbed hooks but thats conjecture.
 
Alex Gowney said:
Russell, you seem keen to dismiss points of view different to your own as having no solid facts and/or "top" anglers to back them up. So what do you have to offer to support your opinion that is so much more valid? Given the apparent, and I think accurrate, negative aspects to both barbed and barbless, I would never use a barbless hook for big fish.
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I'm not dismissing anyones point of view i'm just trying to get to the bottom of why people hate barbless so much when i've seen very little damage made by them.
Of course you're going to see more than there was in the 50's and 60's because all the examples on this thread seem to be commercial/carp based and everyone can be an instant carp fisherman these days without trying anything else, which leads to a lot of inexperienced anglers on the banks of these places, and like i said earlier why do people like Wye and Usk state barbless only, do you think you know better than them??
I'm trying to get a good perspective on the pros and cons of it all.
 
Nick Clark said:
To be blunt Russell, Graham has a point, I don't think anyone is trying to be so definitive here as you imagine - we are simply discussing types of hooks on a fishing thread hopefully with the wellbeing of fish at heart.
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Yes i agree, and mine are barbless and i'm getting a good kicking about it :D
 
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