For the last week or so I've been squeezing the barbs down on my jigs with pliers and seeing if it affects the number of fish I lose. It's always bothered me how many dinks are injured by barbed jigs especially the ones that are hooked in the bony area in the roof of the mouth. The bite has been very light lately and I would occasionally lose a good fish and wonder if the barbless hook was the reason. I went out this afternoon and the pre-front bite was aggressive. Out of 43 fish caught and released, I only lost 1 right at the boat. Besides not injuring throwbacks, fishing barbless lets you unhook a fish and get the jig back in the water in a matter of seconds. I think I just changed the way I crappie fish.

i dont see why it would make you lose more fish the barb is so small on most hooks anyway. one time i used same worn out hook for a month and did not lose any fish.

I couldn't agree more. I crappie fished barbless for several years. It is much easier to remove the hook, much easier on the dinks you throw back, faster back into the water. Yes, sometimes you will lose one if you jack around getting the fish in the boat. No big deal to loose a fish or two unless it's flounder.
LOL!!!

Wayner

You should like the Sickle hooks, they have a very small barb. I like having a bit of a barb just so the jig won't just fall out if you have a little slack.

BigMack, I've never used sickles, but was wondering if they might work better than standard jigs. I'll pick some or order some in. Where's the best place to get them? I use plastics mostly, so I just need the bare jigs.

JayDon's Finny Tribe
http://www.finnytribe.com/
Under-Products-Terminal Tackle
these suckers are very sharp.
We had a thread going about the heat treating process at one time up in the Jig traders area.

Jimmy Houston uses alot of barbless hooks for crappie. He doesn't seem to loose many fish but, they might have cut that out of the video.

WHAT!??
Surely you're not suggesting that one of those TV Fishing Show Grand Masters would edit their footage to make things appear different than they actually occurred??

Anthony, I'm just kidding with you of course, but you bring up a good point. I forget to think about that usually except on one of those shows where they go way overboard with trying to make it look like they are catching one on every cast. I heard one of them say that it sometimes took two days of fishing to come up with one 30 minute show.

Back to the topic, I'm going to try mashing down some jig barbs and see how I like the results. I'm thinking the speed and ease of unhooking along with the reduced injury to the dink throwbacks should outweigh losing a few that might throw the hook.

I would never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever even remotly consider even talking about mashing down my barb.

I don't want to loose that 4lbr I saw at Lake Texoma last winter about 4 in the morning. (Crappiesaurustex)