Ice Fishing Skills: Removing a Barb From a Hook

Video Transcript

"We're going to talk now about how to remove the barb from a hook, and the barb is simply right back here behind the point of the hook, in between the top of the curve and the hook point. And what that's there for is generally to either help hold bait on a hook, or once you hook a fish, to help hold the fish onto the hook. And for many applications, they're very good to have, however they really can be a pain. If a fish is hooked deeply, it's very hard to remove a hook if it's barbed. Even if a fish is hooked in the lip sometimes, this barb keeps you from being able to back off the hook. If I was to catch this hook on my sweater, or my shirt, or my pants, once that barb goes into the material, it's very difficult to remove, I'm going to have to pull and maybe cut to get that out. So a number of reasons why it's nice to have barbless hooks, and typically all you do, you just take a pair of pliers, you come onto the barb of that hook and you just press. And sometimes, depending on the hook size or your pliers, you might have to do it several times. But what you want to do is you want to get it to the point where that area is flat. And there you have a barbless hook."