A lot of the waters I fish don’t actually require barbless or micro-barbed hooks by rule – it’s an option, not a mandate. I use them anyway, on essentially all of my fishing now, and I think the case for doing so is stronger than the “it’s only necessary where required” attitude a lot of anglers still hold.
The most obvious argument is fish welfare – barbless hooks cause noticeably less tissue damage on removal, and unhooking time (which matters for fish recovery, particularly in warmer water with lower dissolved oxygen) is meaningfully faster. That alone should be reason enough, but there’s a second, more selfish argument too: barbless hooks are genuinely easier and quicker for the angler as well, meaning less handling time and a faster return to fishing.
The counterargument I hear most often is that barbless hooks lose more fish during the fight, particularly on species prone to headshaking like pike or on long-range casts where a moment’s slack line can lose contact. In my experience this is a real but manageable trade-off – maintaining better constant tension through the fight largely compensates, and the small number of fish lost to this is, in my view, worth it for the welfare and handling benefits across every other fish landed.
I’m not arguing barbed hooks should be banned everywhere – there are situations, like some sea fishing with big baits at range, where the calculation is different. But for the majority of UK coarse and game fishing situations, I think barbless deserves to be the default choice, not just the compliance-driven one.
Gear that fits this
For anyone buying with this in mind, a few sensible picks.
On the floats and terminal gear side, Korum Mega Grip Stops XL, Matrix Slim Power Pole Float 0.2g and Alloy Method Feeder-Medium 30g.
Baits: Mainline Power Plus Particles Nut Crush, Dynamite Baits Durable Hook Pellet Robin Red Pot-6mm and Mainline Match Method Mix (Fine) Fishmeal & Pellet Mix 1kg.
For reels, TLD II A Reel 50lb 2-Speed Right Hand, Catana FE Reel-C3000 and EOS 10000 Reel are all worth a look.
Rods worth adding: Guru A-Class Method Feeder Rod Heavy 13ft 3pc 1-90g, N'Zon 2.0 Feeder Rods-11’ Method Feeder 2pc and Guru N-Gauge Pro Feeder Rod 12' 1-60g.
Sarah Marsh came to fly fishing through her father, who kept a rod on a small syndicate water in Devon. She spent her teens fishing stocked reservoirs and gradually worked her way toward wild fish on moving water – first on rain-fed freestone rivers in Wales, then on the Hampshire chalk streams she now considers home water.
She holds a level 2 APGAI fly casting qualification and guides informally on the River Test and, from June to September, on a private beat on the River Tay for Atlantic salmon. Her personal best brown trout came from the Itchen at 4lb 1oz; she’d sooner not talk about the salmon that came off at the net last August.
At The River Bend, Sarah writes the game fish species guides, fly fishing technique articles, and the legal content covering trout and salmon regulations.
Covers: Brown trout, rainbow trout, sea trout, Atlantic salmon, fly fishing, chalk streams, Scottish rivers, close season and regulation articles