I'm going to try putting on in a vice today and running emery paper over the barb. It's like sandpaper for metal.
Last year I was trying to debarb in the field and got my first taste of being stung by a fly hook.
It took 20 minutes of whimpering --I'm not proud of it, but I did whimper-- before I manned up and asked my friend to help get it out. He took entirely too much pleasure in the ordeal. And he definitely did not have the hands of a surgeon... more like the fins of a sturgeon.
