Although it may seem obvious ,I will say it anyway.
The biggest march forward in fish protection, whether that be trout or grayling is 'Barbless Hooks'
It makes me cringe to think about scenes of barbed hooks ripping off maxillary bones and barbed hooks being removed with lumps of the fishes' mouth attached. In addition the fish being squeezed to death as a vice like grip is applied to enable the barbed hook to be ripped out.
I can't think of any reasons why barbed hooks should still be sold. Perhaps catch and kill, being the only exception.
Just saying.
Douglas
I’m with you on this Douglas, but, and there are some big “buts”here. Many barbless hooks have extended longer points and tend to have a long slim taper and finer wire and a lot of research was done by the EA Rivers trust etc bitd and I was a consultant on water sensitive catchment issues at that time and it was well researched that barbless hooks penetrated much deeper, than standard barbed and there was little to choose between them on resulting fish damage.
The conclusion was that a standard barbed hook, but with a well flattened barb, was the least damaging, as the steeper tapered and shorter points penetrated less deep.
It was also noted smaller hooks did far less damage.
personally I never fish larger than a 16 and down to a 28 and use narrow gape hooks, most fish are lip hooked and utilising softer tipped glass rods, I bump/break off less fish.