Call us toll-free at 1-800-661-6954
Call us toll-free at 1-800-661-6954
While barbed hooks are not illegal in Alberta these days, large numbers of anglers preferred to fish with the barbs either removed or flattened with a pair of pliers. It’s especially useful when safely unhooking fish while practicing catch and release angling. Which because of enlightened conservation laws is the only way to fish on many waterbodies. But while un-barbing hooks goes a long way to minimizing damage to the mouths of the fish, allowing them to swim away safely to be caught another day. The lack of a barb increases the annoying practice of bait loss. Especially when angling with a jig and frozen shiner minnow for walleye and other predator fish species where natural bait is permitted. Sometimes the minnow will simply not stay put on the hook. A simple rubber stopper is an effective way of securing bait on a jig and avoiding those barbless hook blues An effective way to prevent this is to place a rubber stopper on the hook after it is passed through the eye and out the back of the shiner, firmly securing it in place. Prepare the stoppers at home by cutting a wide rubber bank into quarter inch chunks and have a supply on hand when you hit the water or just break off small pieces of a wiggly tail and use that. Both work well. For no other reason than to avoid that empty, sinking feeling of reeling up only to find you have been fishing with an empty and essentially useless jig.
