Barbless Hooks: What the Studies Say, and How to Fish Them

A barbless hook costs you about one trout in eight: in a 2013 California study, anglers landed 76 percent of the trout they hooked on barbed flies and 63 percent on barbless. What it buys is a hook that backs out in seconds, out of a fish, a net or a thumb. A hook without the barb, the small backward spur behind the point, is made that way or made so with one squeeze of pliers. A tight line wins back most of the lost fish, and on a growing list of waters the choice is already made for you.

A largemouth hooked in the mouth survived 98 times in 100 in a 2008 experiment; hooked in the esophagus, 66. Where the hook goes matters more than what is on it.

What do the studies say?

Barbless hooks have been tested on trout, steelhead, bass and saltwater bait fishing. The results agree on more than the arguments at the boat ramp suggest.

The findings pull against each other. Hühn and Arlinghaus found mortality significantly higher on barbed hooks across their whole data set. Schill and Scarpella, pooling the trout studies on flies and lures in 1997, found a gap of 0.3 points and called barbed-hook rules “a social issue.” Schaeffer and Hoffman, fishing bait off St. Petersburg, Florida, concluded that barbless hooks “probably did not reduce hooking mortality” there, because most fish were jaw-hooked either way. Washington’s Columbia River manager Ryan Lothrop said much the same in 2019: the evidence for measurable savings was inconclusive, and “the biggest effect is where the fish is hooked.”

The Hühn and Arlinghaus meta-analysis has two more findings worth knowing. About 60 percent of all the mortality estimates were under 10 percent, so most released fish live whatever the hook. And mortality rose with water temperature, which a fishing thermometer settles in seconds; the type of hook, scored separately from the barb, showed no link.

Salmon and steelhead have been studied less than trout. Oregon’s 2025 review cites Hooton’s Keogh River steelhead numbers above. As Oregon’s briefing summarizes it, a 2023 study by Courter and colleagues on Washington’s Cowlitz River also linked barbless hooks to better survival in released Chinook and coho, but the gap was small for Chinook and negligible for coho.

So the barb is the second question. A jaw-hooked fish lives either way. A deep-hooked fish lives more often when the hook comes out fast, or slides free after the line is cut, and a barb works against both. That is why barbless pays most on bait, which gets swallowed, and on trout, salmon and steelhead, which are released by the thousands.

Is it harder to catch fish on barbless hooks?

A little: you land a few fewer. Bloom’s 13-point gap on flies and Schaeffer’s 22 percent on bait are the honest size of it. In Meka’s Alaska data, barbed J hooks landed the most fish and circle hooks the fewest.

Photo: Daniel Jaeger, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5). Ordinary barbed hooks: the barb is the small backward spur just behind each point, and it is what holds a hook in once the line goes slack.

Where the lost fish go is the useful part. Domenick Swentosky of Troutbitten, who fishes barbless almost always, finds a barbless hook comes out only when slack gets into the line; anglers who keep tension see “no difference in landing rate.” His rule for trout is “Set quick. Fight quick. Release quick.” Mac Brown, who has guided only with barbless hooks in Bryson City, North Carolina, since 1987, goes against the studies. He argues barbless hooks increase your catch, because the point goes in “with less effort,” like “a spear versus a wedge.”

The other cost lands on the angler’s hands. In Meka’s Alaska study, novice anglers injured a larger share of their trout than experienced ones, mostly while taking the hook out. A barbless hook shortens exactly that moment. Take Me Fishing goes further: “In most situations, you won’t need to use pliers or a de-hooking device.” The same hook comes out of a finger far more easily, too.

Nothing stops you fishing barbed hooks where the rules allow them, and in most water they do. The case for barbless is the fish you release and the hook in your own hand, not the law.

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Where does barbless pay, and where does it cost?

How to make a hook barbless

Oregon and Washington define a barbless hook three ways: made without a barb, with the barb filed off, or with the barb bent down to the shank. Idaho’s wording is the same: bend the barbs “all the way down to the shank of the hook.”

1. Use flat-nose pliers. A round or pointed tip can slip off the barb. Mac Brown warns that crimping can break hook points, “especially for saltwater hooks”; for those, a hook made barbless saves the risk.
2. Pinch the barb flat against the point until no edge is left.
3. Test it. Draw a fingernail down the point toward the bend; if it catches, squeeze again.
4. Do every point. On a treble that means all three barbs; Yellowstone’s rule speaks of hook points, not hooks.
5. Or replace the trebles. Barbless trebles, or inline single hooks, go on with split-ring pliers; the treble hook page covers the swap.

The hooks hub and types of hooks cover the styles a barb can be pinched on.

Which barbless fishing hooks can you buy?

Bought barbless hooks save the pliers job, and the makers sell them for bait, lures and flies. The barb does not change the size you need: buy the size you would fish barbed, and the hook size chart has it by species. Sizes and prices below are from the makers’ own pages in November 2026.

Owner builds the No Escape to comply with barbless rules, and Gamakatsu sells its barbless octopus hook for the same reason. A barbless treble also saves pinching three barbs on every lure where trebles are allowed but barbs are not.

How do you keep a fish on a barbless hook?

1. Keep the line tight from the strike to the net. A barbless hook stays in while there is pressure on it.
2. Keep the rod bent. Fight with the rod, and do not drop the tip to gain line; the bend keeps the pressure steady through jumps and head shakes.
3. Set the drag a little lighter, so a surge stretches the line rather than tearing the hook through soft tissue.
4. Fight fast. A short fight is what both the hook and the fish need.
5. Net the fish. The moment the pressure comes off at the boat or the bank is when barbless hooks fall out.
6. Keep the point sharp. Take Me Fishing argues a barb adds resistance that makes the point harder to drive in. Whatever that is worth, a dull barbless hook has nothing to hold it.

Will bait stay on a barbless hook?

Bait is the one place a barb seems to earn its keep twice, holding the worm as well as the fish. The one study that measured it found otherwise: in Schaeffer and Hoffman’s Florida bait fishery, bait loss did not differ between barbed and barbless hooks. If worms still slip, a bait-holder hook carries small barbs on the shank to grip them; read the water’s wording before you use one where barbless is the rule. The other fix, from Danny Coyne in SunCruiser’s sport-fishing guide, is a small piece of soft plastic slid on after the bait. The plastic grips the metal and stops the worm sliding off, and it adds a little scent. He rates it highest for jigging or trolling a nightcrawler.

On a circle hook the question matters less. In Meka’s study, circle hooks usually caught trout in the jaw only, where a barbless point does the least harm and comes out fastest. A circle hook, which sets in the corner of the jaw, does more for a bait-caught fish than a barbless J hook does.

Where is barbless the law?

None of the state rules we read requires barbless hooks on all of a state’s water. The rules sit in the special regulations for particular rivers and fisheries, mostly trout, salmon and steelhead.

Single-hook water is not always barbless water. Great Smoky Mountains National Park allows only artificial flies or lures with a single hook, but it only encourages barbless hooks.

Yellowstone adopted its rule to cut handling time and injury, and allows only lead-free tackle as well. Wyoming gave the same reason for the North Platte: fewer hook injuries in catch-and-release fish. On the Columbia, Washington made barbless voluntary in June 2019, and the two states later realigned on the requirement. Oregon’s commission heard a staff briefing in December 2025 on the pros and cons of dropping it again. Its staff estimated that modeled release deaths of fall Chinook and coho would rise by 10.5 percent, and some seasons might have to shorten. Rules change every season; the listing for the water you fish is the one that counts.

Is barbless always the gentle choice?

A barbless hook is not automatically the gentle choice. Swentosky tells of a friend who watched a wide-gap streamer hook kill a trout by piercing its brain, and argues a big barbless streamer can do more damage than a small barbed dry fly. He keeps hook gaps reasonable and still pinches down even the micro barb on a size 20 Griffith’s Gnat. His conclusion is the one the studies reach: handling decides more than the barb does.

A barbless hook is one of the things that decide whether a released fish lives. Catch and release covers the rest: where the hook went in, how long the fish was in the air, and the water temperature. Whether the fish feels any of it is its own question, taken up in do fish feel pain.

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Lay any hook on this page and read its size

The True-Size Hook Chart. Print it at actual size and lay a hook on the outlines: the one its bend fills is its size. One sheet, front and back, for the tackle box.

• 14 hooks from 9/0 to #8 at true size, each with its gap and length in inches and millimeters
• Smaller than #8 or bigger than 9/0? Measure the gap and read the size off the ladder, #32 to 12/0
• The size for 17 fish and 16 baits, from bluegill (#8 to #12) to tuna (7/0 to 10/0)
• A 2/0 circle that gapes less than a #4: why a 2/0 is not always a 2/0, and the aught rule in two sentences

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Every outline drawn from Mustad's published dimensions; every size from the 25 sources on the page, Maryland DNR and Idaho Fish and Game among them.

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