The really good thing about using barbless hooks is that you can release a fish with minimal damage. The downside is that the fish can often release itself, with even less damage, before you get a chance to slip the hook out. Such was the case at Upper Dam this week, when a wayward salmon chased and caught my skittering Muddler, whose barb I had squashed with my Leatherman "Squirt", which I find the perfect size tool for that job. The salmon struck, my rod arced. The salmon leaped and shook, my rod straightened out and the line went slack. An exciting tussle, to be sure, but very brief. Three or four seconds, tops.

The Bro always squashes down his barbs. He claims he does it out of concern for the fish, and because it adds to the challenge of landing the fish. I have a suspicion, though, that at least part of the reason is a way-too-close encounter he had with a barbed hook some years ago.

We were in a canoe, on a well-known trout pond, and fish were rising to an evening drake hatch, and big trout were smashing big dry flies. But let me back up about an hour before I tell you what happened next. An hour earlier, the Bro and I and Trout Boy (not his real name) had been enjoying a late-afternoon drink on the porch of a camp overlooking the pond. There was nothing happening on the water. Not a ripple. Trout Boy finished his drink (a soft drink, as I recall) and left, pleading that he had to get home before the hour got too late. No sooner had his car disappeared up the camp road than a rise ring appeared on the pond and spread its ripples. "Hmmm," we both observed. Then another rise, and another, and thirty seconds later we were in the canoe and heading for the ripples.

The trout were cruising just under the surface, sucking in the big emergers, and if we landed a fly anywhere near a rise we would be into a good brookie. I was in the bow seat. The Bro's line was in the water on the port side, when a big trout broke water just to starboard. He whipped his rod to starboard and the line followed. I heard an odd noise, a sort of soft popping sound unlike anything I was familiar with. The next sound I recognized: "Oh, s@##*!" said Bro.

I turned in my seat to see what had happened and nearly fell out of the canoe. Under the Bro's nose was a colorful little moustache that looked a lot like a Royal Wulff. The hook had somehow missed the outside of his left nostril and gone clean through his septum -- the bit between the nostrils where the bull's nose ring goes. The hook was barbed, and the barb had gone through. He was hooked as well as any fish ever was.

A little blood appeared, but not much. "Let's get ashore," I said, "and go into Rangeley and find a doctor to take that out."

"Absolutely not!" he said. "The fishing is too good to miss!" He snipped the tippet off, tied on a new fly, and we continued fishing until dark. I resisted all urges to turn around and look at him for fear I'd capsize the boat laughing.

Back in the camp, I offered again to drive him to seek medical attention, but instead he went into the bathroom with a pliers and emerged a minute later with a sore nose and a now-barbless Wulff. And that, I believe, is why the Bro squashes down the barbs.

All true.