barbed or barbless which?

[pom]

I dont normally used barbed hooks but the fly's i bought for the bonefish are all barbed should i debarb them when i go to cayo coco

[Fantasia]

I don't think barbed hooks are very nice to use on the little fishies. Take unbarbed ones.

[waggerlad]

I don't think barbed hooks are very nice to use on the little fishies. Take unbarbed ones.
dont think the barracuda mind on little fishies caught with barbed, or not barbed, hooks they just like little fishies bless them lol

[marktheshark]

Ullo matey
Bonefish don't just run straight, they zig and zag all over the place and sometimes run back towards you (this happened on my first one - fish ran right past my legs in a deep channel), so there's no guarantee you'll have a taut line all the time. If you use barbless you run a risk of dropping the fish. I go barbed; I'd hate lose a good fish on a slack line, and I return all bones, so I don't lose sleep over it. However, I'm sure there are arguments for barbless too, so it boils down to your personal ethics.

[George07]

I dont normally used barbed hooks but the fly's i bought for the bonefish are all barbed should i debarb them when i go to cayo coco
Hi Lucky,
If you really want to fish barbless here are some things to consider:
-the longer the hook shank, the more chances for the hook to come out (a long shank acts like a lever and enlarges the ‘hole’ made by the hook point. Hence it comes out easier.
-a longer hook point will hold better
-a ‘beak’ point (bent inside) also holds better. Even if the hook is not designed with a beak point, you can push/bend the point inside a bit. It will hold better. Just watch your fingers and use good pliers!
-have pliers with you when fishing, and if the hook starts to ‘open’ after a big fish, push it back inside. When the point is parallel with the shank, go a little beyond that. If the point is slightly going/pointing towards the shank/eye it’s (holding) better.
Note: if you try to bend a hook and it breaks you might want to give up. It means that the tempering done by the manufacturer made it brittle. Chances are, all the similar hooks by the same manufacturer are brittle and you don’t want to waste the entire box. Give them to a ‘friend’ ;-)
-hooks with a down eye hold better. The trade off might be that it reduces the hook gap which translates into hooking ability. So…big gap, down eye.
-there are hooks designed with a special shape point that hold better. The motivation for creating them was (I guess) that for (freshwater) fly fishing competitions barbless hooks are mandatory! One example is the Tiemco 777SP. It’s a saltwater streamer hook (2x long or so, forged). It’s not barbless but you can debarb it without worries. It has a Spear like Point which holds really well. I’ve got baby tarpon on it and it didn’t came out during the fight. The only problem was to get the hook in first J

Last, but not the least important; if you really want to choose the hooks you use, you'll have to tye your own flies. I haven't seen yet a comercial fly tyed on an SP hook...

Tight lines,
George