Go down to Barlow’s, buy a popper kit, build a popper, decide to take it down to the local bass pond at dark to try out and then tie the popper at the truck and start walking out to the pond, holding the popper in one hand, stripping off line with the other hand, waving the rod tip to work line out of the tiptop in preparation for walking up and casting and then step on said fly line and JAM THE HOOK ALL THE WAY INTO YOUR RING FINGER UP TO THE %^&^() SHANK! And then stand there in the dark, all alone, hoping against all hope that you had mashed the barb down because everyone knows that you always mash the barb down because something might happen and then you might be standing alone in the dark with a popper hook jammed all the way into your finger with the barb that you forgot to mash down and I’ll be you-know-whated if I am going to push that thing all the way through! And then get those forceps and clamp on and pull and oh my Gd the barb is not mashed down and then grin with pain and just pull on that @#$%-^&% hook until it comes out by main force.
I was fully expecting blood to come gushing forth but by whatever little smidgen of goodness there was I had managed to miss any major blood vessels and it simply trickled. By this point I swore to myself mightily and decided that I was not going to puss out and go home. So I fished for a while. But my heart was not in it anymore. So I went home and dreamt about jamming the hook in my finger. I lay there and forced myself to confront the mental image of the incident over and over until it kinda quit hurting so much.
This morning all I have is a small red dot and a grim determination to never ever ever let any hook get to the vise jaws without mashing it down first.
I’ve been pretty much distracted and worried by a lot of things lately. I’ve been using fishing to clear my mind and relax and get away from it. But last night I allowed the worries and problems to creep in and whirl around my head like a storm cloud. So I got stupid and did a stupid thing.
that little red hold doesn’t look impressive does it? No, but I can assure you that when that hook was in it, it hurt like all kinds of baby dog emmeffness
My hands look pretty beat-up all fishing season (uh…year-round), from fish teeth and hook piercings, gill plates and line abrasions. I can tell how good or bad fishing has been during the past week by how rough the skin on my thumbs is.
I haven’t pinched all my fly barbs down, but I have started doing just that more and more. It tears up the fish less, and just much quicker & easier to remove it from the fish (or clothing, or fingers, etc). I de-barb some of my spinning-gear lures, too, especially for white bass.
Its really fun when you have a barbed hook deep in your finger, and several pounds of thrashing fish hanging on the lure too, driving that hook deeper and deeper. Good times!
Muskie fishing always scared the crap out of me. I sharpened my hooks like the old guys sharpened broadhead. They were not hooks but weapons for battle. When attached to a large fish you knew that you were in a battle. I was pitching a Grandma’s bait one time like bass fisherman pitch a pig-n-jig. The rear trebble just burried itself in the meat of my left hand at the base of my thumb. I was in Northern Wisconsin, hours away from the nearest hospital. I grabbed my hook out, grabbed the hook turned it 180 degrees and just yanked it out. This is a muskie hook with a damn BIG barb. She popped right out, but I still have a small white spot on that hand that reminds me that barbs are not to be taken lightly.
I only mash down the barbs in the early season where that is the law, since I believe that they help land fish. I wish that I could convince myself that barbless hooks caught just as many fish, it sure would be safer out there.
I too was worried about losing fish with barbless hooks. I’d wanted to try barbless hooks, but never did actually convince myself to alter an otherwise perfectly good hook…until…Rick Z here sent me some flies he’d tied. I didn’t realize they were barbless until I took a really close look after catching plenty of fish. Hey, these things really WORK!
I’ve since debarbed hooks and caught largemouth bass, bluegills, crappies, catfish, white bass and hybrids on those lures/flies.
Smallmouth bass are masters at de-hooking themselves. I’m not sure if I feel comfortable removing the barb and making it even easier for them to throw a hook!
Brother,
I feel your pain. Been there, done that! Mine was with a fairly large crank bait that was attached to my thumb by one hook and a very active and angry bass by the other hook.
I now mash down the barbs on all my fly gear and most of my spinning lures.
I can also see your decision makes a lot of sense. No fish is worth a trip to the hospital. I posted in another thread that if I guided I would demand that my clients, who many times don’t spend that much time on the water, use barbless hooks for everyone’s safety. If I am after a true trophy, barbed everytime for me. It’s a balance thing and everyone has to make their own choice. I really wish that I had more confidence in barbless hooks. They are better to release fish and better to release me, but I still have that little thing in the back of my head saying that some fish will get off that I would have landed if, I used a barbed hook and that drives me nuts.
In my opinion, newbies to the sport lose more fish by being barbless. They will often have some slack line which causes the hook to come free. Once you get the idea of keeping the line tight at all times the problem goes away. I know also that being barbless makes me more concious of playing the fish properly. I have to keep the line tight so I automatically concentrate more on what I am doing.
Rhyne & Dave - I have been FFing totally B’less for 5 years now and I will bet that I have lost less than one fish a year for that reason. Broken line and bad knots, oh yeah! I fish alot for SM, and did when I used hard tackle and still went B’less, treble hooks especially, and still feel I lost very few fish due to no barb. Give it a try, I don’t think you will be disappointed. I drove a large treble into a finger in the middle of Canada years ago and had to just cut my finger to remove it. Never again!
Had to do the old push it through and cut it off thing earlier this summer. My 9 year old son has recently started tying and he had just tied up a big ol’ 2/0 bucktail streamer and had it turned sideways in the vice waiting to glue on some eyes. It was bedtime so off to bed he went. Later after I’d turned off the lights and was heading to bed myself, I walked right next to the bench where he had been tying. Wouldn’t you know that the hook caught me right in the thigh.
After a few choice words I was able to get him downstairs to turn on the lights (being attached to a bench I couldn’t reach the switch) and asked him if he had crimped the barb like I’d taught him, luckily he said yes. Now, unless your 9 yr old has forearms like Popeye, he isn’t going to have the hand strength to actually crimp the barb on a stainless steel 2/0 hook. Needless to say, there was still a pretty good sized barb on that hook and I couldn’t back it out. Ended up pushing it through and cutting the end off.
At least he can say thet he’s caught a 200+ pounder.
A hook in a finger hurts. A barbed hook in the scalp, neck, cheek, or eye can change your life. I never tie on a lure or fly that have barbed hooks. This goes for fresh and salt, fly and spin. And I always wear a hat and sunglasses.
When I buy hooks I mash the barbs on all the hooks right away.
Understand a few times I have gotten in 2000 to 3000 hooks at a time.
I save old hook boxes to put the hooks with the smashed barbs in.
It takes time, but then when I tie I know all the barbs are smashed.
I have about 6000 hooks with smashed barbs on hand right now.
When I was about 14, I was on vacation with the folks. (They would’t let me go alone.)
We had stopped at a park with a lake and I was fishing with a spinning rod and a small, daddy-made, devil’s horse with 2 small treble hooks on it.
The little perch were only about 5 or 6 feet away from me, so I was “fly-rodding” the lure. ( That’s the way I phrased it in my head)
You can see where this is going, can’t you?
On one of the forward casts, the lure made a bee-line for the crown of my head. And stayed there.
I pulled at it a bit, and felt around to see if I could get it out myself. No luck.
So, I walk back to camp with my line still going from my rod tip to a 70 # “fish” on the other end.
Mama has a tendency to faint at the sight of blood, so Dad clipped the line, pushed the barb thru and clipped it off, (Much to my dismay. I didn’t have any more trebles that size.) and I went back to fishing, with a different lure.
I never cried a drop, and I only remember wincing when he had to push the point thru.
I was a tough little bugger, wasn’t I. :rolleyes:
Sometimes I fish barbless, sometimes I don’t. Just depends, how lazy I am. But, I’ve caught a couple really good sized smallies this year, and two of them were on barbless. It’s all about tight lines!!
I was fishing about 10 years ago with my son and my friend. My friend had on a minnow-spin. Well, my son was behind him, and at this time he was 6 years old. My buddy cast, hooked the kid in the head. So the wife takes him to the hospital (since she wouldn’t let me do the push n clip). So the doc, does the push n clip haha.
I’m a little more careful when I fish now, since that happend. For myself and others. When people are casting, I get the hell out of the way.
