Читать книгу On Fishing - Brian Clarke - Страница 20

WHEN, in the late 1970s, John Goddard and I were working on our book The Trout and the Fly, we conducted all manner of experiments. One was to test the efficiency of barbed hooks versus barbless: did we lose more fish with the latter than the former, we wanted to know.

It was the welfare of the fish we had in mind. Though the barbed hooks we used for our flies were tiny – sizes 12 to 18, mainly – they nevertheless, like all barbed hooks, had to be wriggled and teased out. Fish often had to be lifted from the water during the process and the possibility of stress on the trout was further increased.

If we could use barbless hooks without greatly impacting our results, most fish could be set free without being touched. Once beaten they could be brought to the bankside or the wadered leg and the hook could be slipped out with the merest twist of the fingers. The fish would benefit and so, through the sheer convenience of it, would we.

Appropriate barbless hooks were not available so we started removing existing barbs, ourselves. We hooked fish, then gave them every opportunity to escape. We let the line go slack when the fish was in open water, we let it go slack as usual when they jumped, we allowed them to get into weed beds. It made little or no difference to the numbers of fish we banked. We were happy and the fish were happier. We both wrote about it extensively. But for some, old habits die hard.

A TRAWL of tackle shops has confirmed yet again what a hidebound, tradition-driven and often unthinking animal the average angler is. It was almost impossible to find a suitable hook for fly-tying that had no barb. The reason so few shops stock barbless hooks is because so few anglers demand them. And it makes no sense.

It is now decades since I last fished with a fly tied on a barbed hook. Indeed, even when coarse fishing, I almost always fish barbless because the advantages are so obvious and significant.

A barb on a hook serves only two purposes. The first, in coarse fishing, is that it helps to keep a bait on board. The second, in any fishing, is that it gives some anglers peace of mind. The idea that a bait is less likely to have wriggled or fallen off the hook is, of course, comforting to a coarse or sea angler – though the notion is irrelevant to a fly fisherman, who is not using bait. The thought that a hook with a barb on should in theory not be able to come out, can comfort some in the middle of a fight.

It is worth setting against these ideas, some facts. Chief among them – as anyone who habitually fishes barbless knows – is that no more fish are lost from barbless hooks than from barbed. Many will say that fewer fish come adrift.

Anyone in doubt should consider what happens – and can test the principles involved with a short length of line, a hook and a piece of wood into which the hook point has been clicked.

A fish rises to a fly or takes a bait and the angler responds by striking. In an instant the line tightens, exerts its pull on the hook eye and the hook point begins to go home. Alas, it does not always arrive. A barb sticking out from a hook just behind the point creates a wider part of the wire that slows penetration. Sometimes it stops penetration completely and the hook gains the merest purchase.

All sorts of things can then ensue. One is that the fish, held only by the tip of the hook point, comes off instantly – it has ‘been pricked’. Another common occurrence – especially for dry fly anglers, who need to use fine-wire hooks in the interests of lightness – is that as the point slows penetration and the pull of the line on the eye increases, leverage causes the hook bend to open, again enabling the fish to slip free.

There is a third possibility. A barb is not added to a hook, but is cut into it and the spot at which the cut is made naturally represents a weak-point. Too often the result – especially with cheap, fine-wire hooks – is that the great leverage exerted on the point by the pull on the hook’s eye, causes the point to snap clean off. Another lost fish.

With a barbless hook, none of this happens. Without a barb, a hook has no weak point and no wider point to slow penetration. If a barbless hook gains a purchase, the odds are that it will go home, first time.

Once home, it is much less likely to come out than might be imagined. Any angler playing a fish needs to keep a tight line to stay in control – which helps to keep the hook in place. But even if the line is allowed to fall slack it is extremely unusual for a hook to come free. The mere action of a fish swimming means that it tows the line, which exerts enough drag on the hook to keep it secure. In a river, even if a fish stops swimming and the line is allowed to fall slack, the hook stays in place. The reason is that in a river the fish is obliged to face upstream, into the current and the current carries the line downstream behind the fish – again exerting drag on the hook.

There is another, overriding consideration why I not only always fish barbless with a fly but almost always fish barbless when using bait. It is because even the tiniest barb can make a hook difficult to remove and the fish often has to be taken from the water to get the hook out. Any time a fish spends out of the water adds stress for it and, in inexpert hands, there is an added risk in the process of the fish being damaged.

In contrast, a fish taken on a barbless hook can be set free with ease, the hook simply sliding out. Indeed, there is rarely a need for a fish taken on a barbless hook to leave the water at all – a reason why, when trout fishing on most rivers, I not only do not use barbed hooks but do not carry a landing net, either.

It is in spite of all of this that anglers keep on demanding hooks with barbs and why the trade, not unnaturally, keeps on supplying them to the exclusion of pretty well all else.

There are fixes: a barb on a hook can be pressed flat in the vice before fly-tying begins or – caught at the waterside with a shop-bought article – the barb can be pressed down with a pair of small, flat-nosed pliers, a tool that has many other uses besides.

Both actions are the work of a moment, but still that weak spot remains and the odd point snaps off. If only more anglers would recognise the benefits of barbless hooks and would ask for them, the problem – and not the fish – would go away.