Verulam angling new rule

[Graham Elliott]

Keith. As you know I agree with you totally regards barbless, however please don't discount the tv shows that have their followers, especially when the youngsters see the use of 4-6oz leads, clipped up tight.

This imo is the real problem on many carp waters.

 

[Jeff Collins]

First of all

Jeff you have a truly bizarre sense of humor which may well be best kept to those that appreciate it

Most importantly though I have seen so much damage to fishes mouths on barbless only fisheries that I would never use a barbless hook unless there was no other alternative.




I must add that when strong hooks and line are being used meaning the fight is not too protracted the damage is minimized.

I feel the damage is mainly caused on commercials where large carp are being caught on light tackle which leads to a long protracted fight where I am convinced that barbless hooks do move, not only in the original hookhold but also create new ones during the fight (hence the mouth damage).

Also OMO but one about which that I am unswayed.

Keith as said it was black humour. There are some on here who preach about fish care, yet when it comes to it they haven't a clue yet would let people think that they are.

 

[Jeff Collins]

https://youtu.be/WaT4GjEshso

Excuse the badly spelt title........:-(

 

[Joe Winstanley]

Some of the worst mouth damage I have ever witnessed was on two non-commercial waters. The first being on a weedy midlands estate lake, here the tench suffered mouth damage at the hands of wannabe carp anglers hauling fish through weed beds, or just dragging in 'nuisance' fish, using braided reel lines, 3lb+ TC rods and large hooks.

The other water was on a smaller lake where the carp were the victims of mouth damage. In this instance it was attributable to anglers presenting baits (usually 2 or 3) far too close to dense lilly pads, and as a result having to practically drag hooked fish through the pads.

On both waters there were no restrictions on barbed hooks, had there been I doubt it would have made much difference. The mouth damage was the result of poor angling by irresponsible anglers.

 

[Dave Quinn]

As a newcomer to barbel fishing I've been surprised at how tough barbels' mouths are and how difficult it can be to remove a hook tom a landed fish, compared to most other species

I can't the need for barbed hooks myself, and I would think removing one would be more difficult than a barbless hook would cause more damage, it just stands to reason. But like I said I'm a novice

Having said that I agree about the mouth damage to carp, normally caused by heavy lines and rods striking hard and dragging fish in. But unfortunately when you get a commercial stuffed full of fish, even on a so called specimen lake on a complex, the number of fish really makes people value the fish less than usual - one less won't make any difference - so they tend to treat them worse.

Verulam do take fish welfare very seriously, I think if there's a risk of barbed hooks causing damage then banning them is sensible

 

[Mark Swaby]

This is a photo of 5 barbless hooks,I used to use the middle one,I will never again. I used to take a nephew fishing, and on his birthday i took him carp fishing,on a commercial fishery.A light avon rod ,6lb line and float and small cube of meat,barbless size 8 hook,nice and simple, balanced tackle with clutch set correctly.That day he caught a lot of carp,all the bigger ones were not visibly newly damaged. two of the smaller ones ended up with the whole of the inside of their mouths sliced open,terribly damaged.I showed the bailiff one of the fish and she claimed that we must have been using big barbed hooks,you cannot win.There are barbless hooks and barbless hooks,the severly beaked thinner wire (like the middle one) can rip/cut their way out and cause massive damage.I hope if you have to use barbless because of the rules you use hooks without a beaked point,they tend to pull out less and cause least damage.I learnt the hard way and it was not nice.

 

[Mark P Smith]

Barbless only for me and personally i wish my club would introduce a barbless only rule.
the best way to test the damage barbed hooks do is to push one right through the skin on your finger and they try pulling it out.
then do the same with a barbless.