Barbed or Barbless?

[Newby]

G'day,
I went fishing this morning, it was the first cast off the day and I got a nice hook up. Was using a Strike Pro Pygmy. Brand new and hadn't had the chance to change the trebles over to Owner size 16's. But I was anxious and needed to get my fix. Anyway, the little guy had misjudged his attack and I unfortunatley struck him in the left eye.
In the end I did my best to get the barbed hooked out of the poor buggers eye. I got it out perfectly with minimal damage.

I was just wondering if many breamers take the barbs of there hooks? I know that some people wouldn't for the fact that their easier to loose as you have to have constant pressure on your fish.
If so, how do you take the barb off?

Cheers.

[Superduperman]

I use barbless all the time, just squash the barbs down with pliers. the thing i like about barbless hooks as well as making releases easy is that you can often just jiggle the rod tip around to unhook blowies and smaller fish, without having to remove them from the water.

I dont find that I lose many fish (if any at all) by having no barbs.

[Dowelly]

i used tiemco barbless trebles for my hooks nowadays.
all you really need to do is keep presure on and the fish in yours ( on the flats anyway )

[Superduperman]

Dowelly, how do you find the Tiemco trebles? I've been looking around for some Owner alternatives to try.

VMC pyramid point trebles are pretty good, Owners are still my faves...although I was recently showed some Decoy Trebles which are not in production yet which REALLY impressed me, so much so that I'm thinking I'll replace all my owners with them! Keep your eyes peeled, coz these trebles are gunna be tops when they're released.

[Dowelly]

hey tom,
complete in albany has them, they have a fairly big stock of them aswell.
real quality trebles i recon, havnt gone through near as much as i have gone through owners. although owners are great trebles i think if you pin a fish to well with barb hooks they tend to weaken when releasing the hook.
i like just flicking them off on the flats that why barbed trebles are good for me.

[shano]

i find that barbed hooks generally have a better conversion rate but i find that they do cause damage if they pierce the fish's eyeball or down the bak of their throat and my fingers for that matter haha

barbless hooks are mainly a safety feature for breams health when dehooking so i guess they have their advantages

[Newby]

Here's another positive argument I was thinking with the barbless hooks. Wouldn't it make getting off snags alot easier if you've done a bad cast or run it into a bad situation?

Nugget.

[cwlalan]

ya, i believe safety first then anything else... never get hooked..btw.. whats the best method to remove Barbed hooks from body?? any tricks that will reduce damage? i know u could use a plier to snap the "barbed" section..

[shano]

depends
if it was in the bone id leave it for the doctors or if really deep it could be in ligament tissue so again id leave for doctors but if its a shallow stab then i usually just grit my teeth and pull it out
but if deep just cut it of with pliers and leave the rest for the pros

[Newby]

If I put a treble or jighead through my finger, wich I do quite alot because I'm clumsy. I just grab a pair of pliers, but the shaft and pull it through and put my finger in metho.