Fishing Ethics: Barb or De-Barb

1. I fish the upper Rogue river in southern Oregon, a half hour drive to my favorite spot where Elk Creek flows into the river. Given the proximity of the hatchery at Lost Creek there are hatchery steelhead year round. I release all wild steelhead, the ODFW wants you to keep the hatchery fish up to your limit. The spring salmon runs have been terrible the last several years, I don’t fish for them. Whether a barbed or barbless fly the hooks are easily removed without harming the fish.

   I’m more concerned about the angler who wants to take the “I caught this fish” photo, holding big fish up for photo ops. That’s BS and quite often leads to the death of the fish. I NEVER take a wild fish out of the water, handle it carefully long enough to remove the fly from their mouths. We have native cutthroat trout in the creeks that feed into the river. Where allowed to fish for trout I never handle cutthroats, fish with baroness flies.

   The discussion barbless or not is moot if you think about the fish.

   Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.