Northwest Fishing Reports

For salmon, mostly I use Shimano sometimes Mustad and I buy barbed hooks and I crimp down the barb with a vice grips. I use the crimped barb type instead of buying barbless because the crimped barb type does have a little lump of metal left which may resist the hook pulling out to some extent. At least that's my theory!

In the last 3-4 years my hooks have been checked by the game wardens twice and no complaints.

I'm just curious what everybody else does.

I too crimp barbed hooks. I've been checked by the wardens many times and they have all agreed it's barbess. I crimp pretty flat and as long as their isn't any sharp piece and it's smooth it's fine in my opinion.

I always crimp. I make it flat and have never had a problem. I’ve heard some wardens can be ultra picky, but I’ve never witnessed that.

Crimp - never been checked..... I crimp before I tie my rigs up and double check them before I put my gear in the water.

Well, so far its unanimous, go with barbed and crimping!

I jyst buy barbed and crimp. Then again I don't think owner makes a barbless ssw so that's part of it I guess

What I have been told by a warden is if they can't hood a fingernail on it then it is considered barbless.

I buy either, If barbed I go a step further and cut/grind off the barb.

18ftTrophy wrote:I buy either, If barbed I go a step further and cut/grind off the barb.

Are you certain that you aren't compromising the integrity of the metal?

The hooks are likely heat forged, which may make them brittle, and subject to weakening if reintroduced to heat (grinding) in a less than a controlled environment.

Might be best to err on the side of caution, particularly if you and your hooks are kosher with the regs.

onmygame

I haven't had a hook fail yet.

I haven't seen a warden get too picky about crimped barbs. The worst I've seen so far is the warden telling the guy to crimp it down a bit more. I'm sure there might be one out there that's real picky and I've heard the rumors of the piece of panty hose / cotton ball test but I haven't seen it. Pretty sure they can tell by how far you crimped if you're trying to cheat a lil or are making an honest effort to comply with the regs.

I've found that the small size vice grips does a good job of crimping. Works better than a pliers.

With the hardened hooks, like the gami siwash hooks, the barbs tend to break off when crimped and leave a rough spot that I'll file down to make sure it won't snag when using the sweater test. I've encountered a few over the top enforcement officers and I'd rather not spend time arguing my case in court.

2018 is the year I go all barbless. Just swapped out all of my trout gear with proper barbless and rigged all my salmon gear with barbless Gamakatsu's as well. Use to crimp barbs but started to wonder why I was even bothering when the hooks I needed were manufactured barbless for me. I found that my crimped hooks were more susceptible to rust or wear on them, the barbless hooks tend to stay in better shape.