D-Barb

Joe Haubenreich swljoe-at-secretweaponlures-dot-com wrote in
news:2005031506540316807%
:

On 2005-03-14 23:45:03 -0600, "Jerry Barton \(NervisRek\)"
said:

I know a few of you in here have seen me use this little item snip

The testimonial offered on one Web page was pretty compelling, too.
There are some soft baits that bass seem to take down their gullets
immediately. Being a line-watcher and trying to set the hook faster is
the usual advice, but no matter how hard I try, a few bass end up
gut-hooked. Needle-nost pliers have a wire cutter, but often it's not
in a good position to reach the hook.

Looks like it should do the job, Jerry. Good leverage on the cutting
blades and a long handle to reach far back in the gullet... coated for
a secure grip... They just need to add a ring to one end of the grip to
clip on a lanyard.


Shouldn't a C&R Fisherman debarb the hook BEFORE its in the fish?

Scott

If you de-barb before you fish, you may land a lot fewer fish. This is no
good in a tournament. Even us C&R bass guys need to fill the livewell
sometimes.

Rich P


"Scott Seidman" wrote in message
. 1.4...
Joe Haubenreich swljoe-at-secretweaponlures-dot-com wrote in
news:2005031506540316807%
:

On 2005-03-14 23:45:03 -0600, "Jerry Barton \(NervisRek\)"
said:

I know a few of you in here have seen me use this little item snip

The testimonial offered on one Web page was pretty compelling, too.
There are some soft baits that bass seem to take down their gullets
immediately. Being a line-watcher and trying to set the hook faster is
the usual advice, but no matter how hard I try, a few bass end up
gut-hooked. Needle-nost pliers have a wire cutter, but often it's not
in a good position to reach the hook.

Looks like it should do the job, Jerry. Good leverage on the cutting
blades and a long handle to reach far back in the gullet... coated for
a secure grip... They just need to add a ring to one end of the grip to
clip on a lanyard.


Shouldn't a C&R Fisherman debarb the hook BEFORE its in the fish?

Scott

"Rich P" wrote in
:


If you de-barb before you fish, you may land a lot fewer fish. This
is no good in a tournament. Even us C&R bass guys need to fill the
livewell sometimes.

Rich P


Agreed, but how much fishing do you do in tournaments, as opposed to
practicing for tournaments, or even just plain old recreational fishing? --
this is a group in the "rec" hierarchy after all.


Scott

On 16 Mar 2005 00:26:45 GMT, Scott Seidman
wrote:

"Rich P" wrote in
:


If you de-barb before you fish, you may land a lot fewer fish. This
is no good in a tournament. Even us C&R bass guys need to fill the
livewell sometimes.

Rich P


Agreed, but how much fishing do you do in tournaments, as opposed to
practicing for tournaments, or even just plain old recreational fishing? --
this is a group in the "rec" hierarchy after all.


Scott

Did you even bother to go and look at the tool? I think not. If you
had gone to the link provided initially, we would not be having this
discussion right now. And you would not be pluckin' my nerves as my
Nana used to say. Here it is again http://www.dbarb.com/ so you can
see WTF you are talking about.

Harry J aka Thundercat
Brooklyn Bill's Tackle Shop Fishing Team
http://www.brooklynbillstackleshop.com
Share the knowledge, compete on execution.

Thundercat wrote in
news
Did you even bother to go and look at the tool? I think not. If you
had gone to the link provided initially, we would not be having this
discussion right now. And you would not be pluckin' my nerves as my
Nana used to say. Here it is again http://www.dbarb.com/ so you can
see WTF you are talking about.

Harry J aka Thundercat
Brooklyn Bill's Tackle Shop Fishing Team
http://www.brooklynbillstackleshop.com
Share the knowledge, compete on execution.



Of course I went and looked at the tool. In fact, how else would I have
known from this thread that debarbing takes place in the fish? It calls
for more handling of the fish than using hooks that have already been
debarbed. Also, if the point is buried deep in flesh (the fish's or
yours), this tool isn't going to get the barb without a bunch of messing
around. Which part of that plucks your nerves?

IMO, a recreational C&R fisherman should consider debarbing his hooks.
While release mortality is very hard to measure well in natural
conditions, I go under the assumption that fishing with barbs increases
mortality. This tool might alleviate some of it, but likely not all of
it. Even with debarbed hooks, there will still be some mortality.

There are some valid arguments for not debarbing, and relying on this
tool. I'll even present some. 1) "It's more expensive to maintain two
sets of hooks if I want to use barbed hooks for tournament fishing." 2)
"If I have two sets of hooks, I might use the wrong one when the money is
on the line." 3) "There's some studies that suggest that debarbed hooks
cause more damage by impaling deeper and causing multiple punctures at
one site, so I don't use debarbed hooks." 4) "I think C&R mortality is
low enough, even with barbed hooks, that I don't think using debarbed
hooks is important". 5) "I don't care that using debarbed hooks will
result in even lower mortality than using this tool". Even 6) " I
couldn't care less about fish mortality" is a valid argument. Suggesting
that I don't know WTF I'm talking about isn't (and if frankly offensive).
Turning this around, have you EVER fished with debarbed hooks? If not,
couldn't I say that YOU might be a tad deficient in knowing what you're
talking about?

I'm happy to keep this going, politely. Like it or not, even C&R fishing
is a blood sport. How to minimize fish mortality is certainly a valid
topic for this group. It's also something that every responsible
fisherman should think about sometimes. If you knew that mortality was
0%, and every fish you released lived, you'd probably think about your
sport a little differently than you would if you knew that release
mortality was 100%, and every fish you released died. Well, the true
answer is somewhere in between those two extremes.

I'll put it out again. If you're fishing recreationally, and how many
fish you boat isn't important, why leave the barbs on your hook if you
have any reason to think that it will save some fish to pinch them back?

Scott

Scott, you do a some valid points. My reason for posting this originally was
so that those who do hook a fish deep have a tool to help release without
injury. It's help tremendously for me in the past, and I'll continue to
carry it in my tackle box. As far as using de-barbed hooks, to me that would
be the same as taking a gun hunting without bullets, I can beat the prey to
death, but I think I could take it down easier if I had used bullets. With
barbed hooks I have more of a chance of getting the fish to the boat, and
then I can release it unharmed. This tool has saved many a fish that
probably would had died after release, or even before a weigh-in. Some of
the guys in my club have actually came over to my boat during a tournament
to use this tool. Using de-barbed hooks or not will always be a pro/con
situation that'll be carried on after we're all gone, so there's no winners
in the conversation.




"Scott Seidman" wrote in message
. 1.4...
Thundercat wrote in
news
Did you even bother to go and look at the tool? I think not. If you
had gone to the link provided initially, we would not be having this
discussion right now. And you would not be pluckin' my nerves as my
Nana used to say. Here it is again http://www.dbarb.com/ so you can
see WTF you are talking about.

Harry J aka Thundercat
Brooklyn Bill's Tackle Shop Fishing Team
http://www.brooklynbillstackleshop.com
Share the knowledge, compete on execution.



Of course I went and looked at the tool. In fact, how else would I have
known from this thread that debarbing takes place in the fish? It calls
for more handling of the fish than using hooks that have already been
debarbed. Also, if the point is buried deep in flesh (the fish's or
yours), this tool isn't going to get the barb without a bunch of messing
around. Which part of that plucks your nerves?

IMO, a recreational C&R fisherman should consider debarbing his hooks.
While release mortality is very hard to measure well in natural
conditions, I go under the assumption that fishing with barbs increases
mortality. This tool might alleviate some of it, but likely not all of
it. Even with debarbed hooks, there will still be some mortality.

There are some valid arguments for not debarbing, and relying on this
tool. I'll even present some. 1) "It's more expensive to maintain two
sets of hooks if I want to use barbed hooks for tournament fishing." 2)
"If I have two sets of hooks, I might use the wrong one when the money is
on the line." 3) "There's some studies that suggest that debarbed hooks
cause more damage by impaling deeper and causing multiple punctures at
one site, so I don't use debarbed hooks." 4) "I think C&R mortality is
low enough, even with barbed hooks, that I don't think using debarbed
hooks is important". 5) "I don't care that using debarbed hooks will
result in even lower mortality than using this tool". Even 6) " I
couldn't care less about fish mortality" is a valid argument. Suggesting
that I don't know WTF I'm talking about isn't (and if frankly offensive).
Turning this around, have you EVER fished with debarbed hooks? If not,
couldn't I say that YOU might be a tad deficient in knowing what you're
talking about?

I'm happy to keep this going, politely. Like it or not, even C&R fishing
is a blood sport. How to minimize fish mortality is certainly a valid
topic for this group. It's also something that every responsible
fisherman should think about sometimes. If you knew that mortality was
0%, and every fish you released lived, you'd probably think about your
sport a little differently than you would if you knew that release
mortality was 100%, and every fish you released died. Well, the true
answer is somewhere in between those two extremes.

I'll put it out again. If you're fishing recreationally, and how many
fish you boat isn't important, why leave the barbs on your hook if you
have any reason to think that it will save some fish to pinch them back?

Scott

Jerry Barton (NervisRek) wrote:
Scott, you do a some valid points. My reason for posting this originally was
so that those who do hook a fish deep have a tool to help release without
injury. It's help tremendously for me in the past, and I'll continue to
carry it in my tackle box. As far as using de-barbed hooks,


Here is the best thing I have found to remove those deep set hooks, even
when they are out of site, this thing safely removes them

http://www.ezfishin.com/


--
Rodney Long,
Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread
Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures,
Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator
and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com

On 16 Mar 2005 15:30:16 GMT, Scott Seidman
wrote:

It calls
for more handling of the fish than using hooks that have already been
debarbed.

If you used the D-Barb tool on the hooks prior to fishing, you simply
wouldn't catch any. It cuts the whole tip off. But you already knew
that because you checked out the site. Although I am sure you can
understand why I might think otherwise based on your insightful
comments above. Just removing the barb from the hook would be an
altogether different discussion that has nothing to do with the D-Barb
tool. Knowing the above, the rest of the discussion is moot IMO.

lmb2xesad
Harry J aka Thundercat
Brooklyn Bill's Tackle Shop Fishing Team
http://www.brooklynbillstackleshop.com
Share the knowledge, compete on execution.

Thundercat wrote in
:

On 16 Mar 2005 15:30:16 GMT, Scott Seidman
wrote:

It calls
for more handling of the fish than using hooks that have already been
debarbed.

If you used the D-Barb tool on the hooks prior to fishing, you simply
wouldn't catch any. It cuts the whole tip off. But you already knew
that because you checked out the site. Although I am sure you can
understand why I might think otherwise based on your insightful
comments above. Just removing the barb from the hook would be an
altogether different discussion that has nothing to do with the D-Barb
tool. Knowing the above, the rest of the discussion is moot IMO.

lmb2xesad
Harry J aka Thundercat
Brooklyn Bill's Tackle Shop Fishing Team
http://www.brooklynbillstackleshop.com
Share the knowledge, compete on execution.

Man, you're hard to talk to. First, there are plenty of ways to debarb
hooks other than this tool. Most people who debarb either use barbless
hooks, or just use a needlenose without serrations to pinch the barb over.
I never would have thought to go out and buy a $20 tool to pinch off a
barb.

Next, on the d-barb homepage, the two cartoon hooks drawn on the page show
hooks with tips intact, but with the pointy part of the barb missing.
Perhaps this gave me the impression that the tool could remove barbs
without removing tips, but I still wouldn't use it to debarb a hook before
its buried in the fish. I think I've seen some other photos or drawings
like this on their page, but it's a nasty page to navigate-- their web-
designer, burnette solutions, must be one of the last professional web
group in the world to still use frames, and the media player version of the
movie wouldn't download--but that really is moot.

I've had two polite replies from people who have obviously managed to pick
up on the point I've been making (but the next time I land a 22" trout on a
size 18 barbless hook with a 5x tippet, I'll chuckle about Jerry's "hunting
without bullets" comment--BTW, Jerry, if you're ever in western NY, drop me
a line, and maybe we can get one of those monsters on the end of your
line). Silly me, I thought that I could talk about C&R mortality in a
thread started by someone who is trying to spread a product that decreases
C&R mortality.

If you're still having trouble deciding whether or not my original reply
was on topic, I'll spell it out for you. Look at what I replied to
originally. Joe was talking about the testimonials. One paragraph in those
testimonials read:
"This fish had really swallowed the hook with only the last half inch or so
visable. It was bleeding and I felt the best I could do was to reach down
as far as possible (quite easy with the D-Barb)(sic) and just snip off the
hook. Of course I don't know what the long term effect on the fish will be
but I felt that I would have had a hard time cutting the hook as closely as
I did with diagonal cutters, especially as deep as it was."

If that angler had been using barbless hooks in the first place, that fish
wouldn't have swam away with a hook in it.

If you still can't follow, here it is (limiting myself to two syllable
words): Jerry nicely posted that using this tool saves fish. My reply was
that fishing with barbless hooks in the first place would save even more
fish. I'm afraid I can't get much simpler-- my keyboard has keys, not
crayons.

As a last point, to consider, I've read about some fly fishermen who cut
off their points, as the ultimate in C&R fishing. In fact, one company
used to sell a Touch And Go hook, with an eye where the point would be, to
decrease the chance that a fish could be injured by a hook with the point
cut off. Of course, this makes absolutely no sense to do for bass fishing
(and I wouldn't even suggest it--but point this out to show that there are
people that fish with no points), but it can be pretty exciting for dry fly
fishing.

Scott