Get Hooked on Fishing, Not on a Barbed Hook

BASED ON RECENT STORIES from half a dozen sources, it is time again to beat my favorite tambourine: Get yourself some needle-nosed pliers and use them to flatten the barbs on your hooks.

Any of you who fish long enough with enough people who can’t really cast or don’t pay attention or drink a little more than they should (or all of the above) will wind up someday being stuck by a fish hook.

Those of you who have unusually good luck might go years with only near misses where the hook penetrates your skin but stops just short of its barb. Be thrilled. You dodged all that comes with the other sort of hook-in-the-whatever encounter.

Odds of getting jabbed past the barb probably are about the same as being stung by a honeybee while you trim your flowering ligustrums—maybe lower. The difference is that a bee sting probably won’t shut down your day (unless you’re allergic.).

You’ll put some potion or lotion on it, complain about the pain for a little while, then continue doing whatever the day encouraged you to do.

A barbed fish hook that finds its way deep into any body part—even the slightest bit past the barb—is going to change your plans. This changes everyone else’s plans, too. Sometimes the hook pain isn’t nearly so bad as the whining of people who feel inconvenienced by having to stop their fishing to tend to you.

Things could go either way behind a barb-deep stick if you’re in the company of someone who claims to know how to remove that hook without making an already bad situation worse. So long as the hook is buried and not being jostled, the pain probably will be tolerable. It’ll hurt, but not bite-on-a-stick hurt.

Add the trauma of someone tying a string around that hook and pressing it downward and then telling you to turn away as they give it a firm YANK. Even if it goes well, it’s going to make you wince. Not so well, and it’ll make you say words you normally don’t say around kids.

Mashing the Misery

If any of your friends has had to remove hooks from people more than twice (unless they’re professional guides) you might want to reconsider fishing with that person.

To avoid unnecessary misery and hundreds of dollars in urgent-care bills, go spend five bucks on needle-nosed pliers and mash down the barbs on every hook in your box. Do it while you watch a ball game or between bites of a hamburger or whenever and wherever it’s convenient.

One by one, the potential causes of misery and great expense are flattened into submission. They can’t hurt you—ever again.

In addition to mashing the barbs on my own hooks, I’ve done the same many times for several people who convinced me that might be a good idea.

When I see parents not watching closely while their children sling treble-hooked plugs on neighborhood ponds, I offer to mash the hook barbs. When someone on a bay boat tends to cast sidearm as opposed to overhand, I offer to flatten those barbs. The next time I offer my pliers to a dad or mom who’s trying to get a child into fishing will not be the first—because I always have a backup available.)

Needle-nosed pliers can be had for less than five bucks. When you buy them for yourself, get a second and maybe a third as “just in case” offerings to someone who needs them.

Don’t ask for money. Don’t accept money. Hand them the pliers and know you’ve probably saved someone in that family from a dreadful experience.

It’s important to note that not every barb gets mashed perfectly flush to the hook shank on the first pinch. Slide a thumb or finger from the bend of the hook toward its point. If your skin meets any resistance at all, reapply the pliers. This is a situation where nearly good is no good at all.

I’ve lived long enough and caught enough fish that I probably should have been “hook-stuck” two dozen times by now. I’m also patient enough, however, not to grab a fish that isn’t ready to be grabbed.

Between caution and chance, I’ve managed to become deeply hooked only three times. All three times, thankfully, the hooks had no barb to keep them from being extracted quickly and comfortably.

To address a question that comes up often—no, I don’t lose many fish because of my hooks. A tight line does more to keep a fish in the fight than a barbed hook.

That said, if you’re catching small trout on the bay or bass in a lake and intend to release them, barbless hooks make that much simpler. Given a little slack just off the rod tip, an active fish often will shake itself loose right at the boat or bank.

Many of the ones that can’t ditch the hook can be released even without being touched. Hold the line just above their mouths with one hand and use those pliers to retrieve that hook with the other.

Needle-nosed pliers, it turns out, are quite the fish-conservation tool. Carry pliers. Save a fish…and maybe a friend.

 

Email Doug Pike at ContactUs@fishgame.com

 

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