Barbless hooks cause less damage than barbed! How often do we hear this? Barbed hooks cause no more damage than a slight puncture wound. Bad unhooking causes the damage. These are all sweeping generalisations though. Hook size, pattern, and indeed the fish caught can all have a bairing on this. A small, lets say eighteens, straight point barbless hook, being used to catch roach, is undubtedly better than the same hook in a barbed pattern. Why? Well even if a roach is carefully unhooked, due to the relative size of the barb, and the delicate nature of their mouths, more damage is unavoidable. Look at the same pattern in say a size six, fishing for carp, and the oppisite is true. Straight point barbless carp hooks can be quite horrendous, dependant upon the brand. This is because the hook is not puncturing straight through the mouth, unlike with smaller spiecies. What happens is that the hook can literaly cut through the flesh it has embedded in untill it reaches something solid i.e. the inside of the lips. I have witnessed this first hand and belive me it is not pretty. You end up with a nasty deep long cut behind the hook. If I was a fishery owner, I would ban barbed hooks for general fishing, and conversly I would ban barbless for carp fishing. Hows that for a slightly different oppinion?
