I have not used barbs in probably 15 years or more.Back then me and a couple of friends kept track of fish caught with and without barbs and found that we lost a lot more on hooks WITH the barbs stil on. We came to the conclusion that with the barb the hook is about twice as thick and on hookset the barbless hooks much more easily penetrated fully and the barbed hooks were not seting passed the barb so the fish was only hooked by the tip only. The larger the hook the more apparent this was.
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