Bumping fish

[Peter Brownbill]

I’ve never really liked curved shank hooks , prefer a wide gape with a slightly inturned eye.Personally I’d use a 6 for a hook and hold scenario. I had a few good pulls last year and fish on fish off and hook had turned over and was blunt .I just love simple rigs and like to keep it like meat & potato .

 

[David Maddison]

I do prefer an Inturned/beaked point and wide gape!
I've just recently gone up a hook size and not pulled out of a fish as yet!

 

[Richard Isaacs]

Knocking a barbel off is quite a difficult thing to do unless there is something fundamentally wrong. They feed in such a way that In most cases a good hook hold is pretty inevitable and their lips are seriously tough.
I lose 1 or 2 a year and in 90% of cases it’s either immediately after hooking which would lead the cause to be around the hook/bait/hair arrangement or when you take the first commitment with the net and she goes for another bolt and in that case the cause would be around lack of cushioning in the line/rod/clutch area.
Generally the latter we learn from very quickly and assume she ain’t netting up first time round.
If I could get away with it I’d definitely fish with completely straight points. I like wide gape hooks and an in turned point makes them counter productive but the river bed doesn’t lend itself well to straight hook points so I compromise and use a slightly in turned point on a wide gape and it works for me. I can redress a hook point to ultra sharp on the bank in seconds if it hasn’t curled over so My rigs stay top of their game for longer.