I'm pretty much a hook and release guy although I do keep a half dozen stripers, a few yellow perch, and one trout a year. I tie on hooks from 5/0 to 26, and generally pinch the barb on each hook before putting it in the vise (saves tying a lovely fly then breaking the hook at the bend through sloppy pinching, although that DOES add colour to my vocabulary). Given that the smallest hooks are, in total, smaller than the barb on a 3/0, I feel a bit foolish pinching the barb on hooks smaller than #20 (although some of our water requires it).

So, of you folks who hook and release and tie your own flies, do you pinch the barb on the tiny stuff? (yeah, I know, you can buy barbless hooks, but I'm still working through my current inventory from the last 35 years, and a few thousand I inherited from someone). /thanks for the insight.
brent

Mikefly: Yeah, got weird eyes. They're about 70 years old, on the edge of glaucoma, myopic, cataract repaired, and on and on. But I can focus within 4" of my eye with my glasses off, and that helps a LOT. But I DID buy a flipdown magnifier that mounts on my ballcap for use on the stream.
brent

Provincial regulations here in Manitoba require that all hooks have the barbs pinched, a policy I’m totally in agreement with. Much easier on released fish and novice fly fishers.

I just buy barb less hooks now. I still have a few old ones with barb that I still use up where I pinch the barb but the new ones I buy are all barbless

Most places I fish don't require barbless hooks, since around here the drunk, bait-soaking, bull-trout poaching demographic is a very important political constituency.

Regardless, I pinch all the barbs on flies I fish. I prefer to just do it before I tie them using the jaws of the vice. On flies I didn't tie I tend to do it with pliers before they go into the fly box. I have seen no change in the embarrassingly small number of fish I land, but unhooking fish (or myself) is an order of magnitude faster which just makes good sense for everybody.

No barb also helps when you hook yourself:)

I don't find I lose more fish without barb. Maybe when you fish for tarpon but for trout I don't think I lose much more and it is much easier to unhook

I used to pinch the barbs down on all my hooks because in some of our waters here in Colorado, they are barbless only waters. So when the Game Warden comes by and inspects your hook, they use a cotton ball, and if any, I repeat, ANY cotton is left on the hook where the barb was pinched down, you will be visiting the County Court House later on.

So, since I don't like those odds, I went completely barbless when I buy hooks. I am liking these "competition" hooks very much because they have a wider hook gap which helps me not slice my thread when tying. But some have that beaked hook point that slightly points upward, and I still at times catch my thread. But not as bad as I used to.

Barbless for me is the only choice for me, and I will say that I have lost some fish with these hooks when I first started fishing with them. But as time went on I learned how to keep the pressure on the line better which I believe has made me a better fisherman. But I also believe it gives the fish a better chance to get off the hook making fishing much better sport for me.

This may come a shock to some, but Brazil is a long way from mandatory barbless hook regulations. In fact, the nation has much bigger problems to worry about, but that gets into politics and such, for which this is not the appropriate place. Neighboring Argentina seems to have more enlightened legislators when it comes to fisheries conservation. Here, “fishing” means to kill fish by practically any means imaginable.

One of the most common, and destructive in my opinion, is the widespread indiscriminate use of gill nets. Trotlines are also used, but seem to be less problematic, allowing commercial fishermen to be more selective. When it comes to sportfishing, those who use artificial baits, such as with spinning rods or baitcasting gear, tend to practice catch and release. With fly-fishers, catch and release is the norm. There are even a few places where municipal (equivalent to county) laws require trout fishermen to use fly-fishing equipment and practice catch and release. Even there, barbless hooks are optional.

Some of the species that I fish for have such toothy mouths that it’s a good idea to get the hook out as quickly and easily as possible after landing a fish. Merely for that reason I believe in the practice of pinching down the barbs. But I’m not so sure about another common practice among fly fishers. And that brings us to the next topic, which deserves a separate thread: landing nets.

When I'm around a woman with a nice derriere I sometimes pinch the wrong thing and get barbed.

I pinch barbs on any fly I use. typically on the stream.