We compared hook shedding rates, mortality, and bleeding of cultured brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis subjected to intentional deep hooking on size-6 barbed or barbless single hooks (with line cutting) baited with leaf worms Lumbricus rubellus. Hook shedding at the end of the 6week holding period averaged 20% and did not differ between hook types. Neither immediate mortality (average ¼ 12.5%) nor mortality after 5 d (average ¼ 20%) differed between hook types. Although we cannot demonstrate a survival advantage for cultured brook trout that were baitfished with barbless hooks over those caught on barbed hooks, we did find that significantly less bleeding was caused by barbless hooks. Further research examining whether the use of barbless hooks results in increased survival of wild brook trout or other trout species under different fishing conditions is warranted.Westerman (1932) reported that barbed hooks caused slightly more mortality than barbless hooks when brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis (size range ¼ 89-178 mm) were caught with bait at a Michigan fish hatchery, but the validity of this result has since been questioned for several methodological reasons (discussed by Schill and Scarpella 1997). A substantial body of subsequent work has generally shown no significant difference in hooking mortality between nonanadromous salmonids (hereafter, trout) caught on barbed and barbless hooks regardless of whether bait, lures, or artificial flies were used (Thompson 1946, cited by Shetter andAllison, 1955; Hunsaker et al. initiated some controversy when they used a dubious variant of a meta-analytical procedure to conclude that use of barbed hooks in baitfishing caused much more postrelease mortality of trout than barbless hooks (33.5% versus 8.4% mortality, respectively). This finding was subsequently criticized by several workers (Schill and Scarpella 1997;Turek and Brett 1997) because of an apparent flaw with their procedure.Despite considerable attention given to barbed-hook versus barbless-hook mortality over many years, the question remains unsettled as to whether barbless hooks reduce postrelease mortality when baitfishing for trout. For example, after their meta-analysis that largely showed barbed hook restrictions to be relevant socially but not biologically, Schill and Scarpella (1997) noted the possibility of some merit with the use of barbless hooks by bait anglers when releasing trout. In addition, DuBois and Kuklinski (2004) found no statistical difference in overall mortality associated with barbed and barbless hooks in active baitfishing for wild brook trout, most of which were not deeply hooked. However, they noted that deeply hooked trout were significantly more likely to die when barbed hooks were used than when barbless hooks were used. Further, Jenkins (2003) surprisingly reported no mortality after 26 d in relatively large (mean fork length ¼ 254 mm) cultured rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss that were deeply hooked on barbless Jhooks (5 mm between point and shank; evidently size 8). In that ...
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