Should Ontario go barbless?

By Gord Ellis

Many biologists and anglers have embraced barbless-hook regulations as a fisheries management tool. Manitoba is entirely barbless, as is the Northwest Territories. In British Columbia, most steelhead, sturgeon, and ocean salmon fisheries require anglers to use single barbless hooks. Ontario has been slower to get on the barb-free bandwagon, but restrictions have been implemented in some areas, Lake Nipigon, for instance.

Unfortunately, random use of barbless regulations often leads to angler confusion and more work for enforcement officers. In Oregon, where there's a patchwork of barbless regulations, about 80 per cent of fishing-gear citations given to anglers relate to the use of barbed hooks where barbless are required.

Due to frequent visits to Lake Nipigon and occasional trips to other Canadian provinces, I've become used to pinching down my barbs. There's no doubt in my mind that barbless hooks help reduce handling time when releasing most fish. Barbless jigs fall out in a net and de-barbed spinners can be pushed free with a minimum of fuss. One hassle is checking hooks on each lure before casting on regulated waters. Another is that keeping a minnow on a barbless hook is tough.

Like many anglers, I question the theory that a barbless hook improves a released fish's long-term chance for survival. Without a barb, a hook can penetrate more deeply into the mouth tissue, in some instances slicing into the gill rakers. I've seen large brook trout and salmon bleed to death due to the use of razor-sharp barbless hooks. Some fisheries biologists also wonder where the evidence is to support such a sweeping gear regulation. Do barbed hooks really cause more delayed mortality than barbless ones in catch-and-release situations?

One of the most comprehensive studies was done during the summers of 1964 and 1965 at Yellowstone Lake, in Wyoming. It looked at post-release mortality of cutthroat trout angled on a variety of gear. Lures tested were barbed and barbless No. 12 dry flies; barbed and barbless treble-hooked spoons measuring 1.34 inches in length and .58 inches across; and No. 3 spinner trolling rigs baited with worms on No. 4 hooks.

Groups of 25 trout caught on each type of hook and lure were placed in free-floating live boxes for 10-day periods. Control groups of unhooked trout were electro-shocked and also held for observation. Anglers caught 509 cutthroats and 62 control trout were electrofished. The average trout was 14 inches (35 cm) in length, but the range was from 9 to almost 17 inches (22 to 43 cm). The fish were observed daily for the first three days and then every other day.

Hooking mortality ranged from zero to 84 per cent in individual test groups, while mean mortalities ranged from 2.7 to 73 per cent. No significant differences in mortality were detected among trout caught with barbed and barbless flies (4 per cent and 3.3 per cent respectively), barbed and barbless treble-hook spoons (2.65 and 6 per cent ), trolled worms that were not swallowed (8.2 per cent), and unhooked control trout (4.8 per cent). A significant difference was apparent for trout that swallowed a worm and hook. Within 24 hours, 73 per cent of them died.

The study suggested to researchers that the mortality of fly-caught trout is largely due to hook placement (in the gills or esophagus) and that barbless restrictions on treble-hook lures contribute little to the overall mortality of released trout.

One scientific paper touted by biologists who support the regulation of barbless hooks was published in 1992 in the North American Journal of Fisheries. The article, "a meta-analysis of hooking mortality of nonanadromous trout," was written by M. J. Taylor and K. R. White. They searched for hooking studies and summarized mortality rates associated with different gear. They reported that average mortality rates for trout caught on baited hooks and released were 33.5 per cent for barbed hooks and 8.4 per cent for barbless hooks. Their article was embraced by biologists across North America and the results were reprinted in several outdoor magazines.

In 1997, however, in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management, two California-based fisheries managers, Stephen Turek and Michael Brett, took Taylor and White to task, saying that the conclusions of the "meta-analysis" were based on seven studies involving barbed hooks and only one study involving barbless hooks. Of those studies, only one (done by F.A. Westerman in 1932) dealt with both hook types. Westerman's study had provided the 8.4 per cent mortality rate for barbless cited by White and Taylor, but his figures for mortality after barbed hooking were also low (7- to 10.5 per cent). The large difference between barbed and barbless hooking shown by Taylor and White's study overwhelmed the small difference shown by the only study that actually compared the two.

Brett and Turek said, "The most logical conclusion that can be drawn from these data is that mortality from bait fishing will not be markedly reduced by the use of barbless hooks. This important result should be clarified for managers of sport fisheries."

Barbless hooks will continue to be a controversial issue in Ontario. As we've seen, however, the evidence that barbless is preferable to barbed hooks is thin at best. Hook placement, the use of artificial lures in place of live bait, water temperature, and post-capture fish handling all play a larger role in whether a fish survives release than does the use of barbed or barbless hooks. I believe the use of barbless hooks in Ontario should be a personal choice, not a regulation, just as deciding whether to release a fish or keep it for the table is still a choice, within limits, in most of our fisheries.