Craig, there is no doubt whatsoever you will lose less fish with barbs. I have lost a number of big fish over the years ten or fifteen minutes into the fight when the hook comes out. I am pretty sure at least some of them would have stayed on with barbed hooks.
Nomad insist on the use of single barbless hooks for a few reason, all of which I fully understand. The first is safety - if you get a huge treble whacked into you with barbs on them, you literally need surgery to remove it. Barbless, it comes straight out. The second is for the fish - if you lose a fish and the poor bugger has a lure with barbs on it in its throat, you have killed the fish. Even with barbless, there will be occasions when the fish cannot shake the hooks out but it has a much better chance of shaking the lure off with barbless hooks. Third - Nomad belives the single hook does less damage to the fish and holds better than trebles. I'm not so sure I agree with this myself based on my experience but they are strongly of that view.
There is no doubt that the incidence of lost fish with LPB is much lower than Nomad experiences but not all the areas LPB fish are deep and their customers lose their share of fish as well.
Damon was quite intrigued by the rig the boys use but his immediate reaction was that the short leader just wouldn't be the go for places which Nomad tends to fish. I have to say that I agree. I would have no hesitation fishing with the rig which LPB use in NC but I would not want to be using it in Shoalwater or Jewell Reef! Btw, the boys at LPB don't use 200lb - they use 300-400lb mono leaders. if you didn't experience any bite offs from the razor gang after changing your rig, it simply means you got lucky. Wahoo, mackeral and barrcuda will cut 500lb mono without any effort at all. For comparative puprposes, I didn't have one cut off on my last trip whereas Damon spent the whole cursing and re-rigging from encounters with mackeral - and we both use long mono leaders. It just means I got lucky.
Shock absorption is not as much of an issue for the rig that LPB uses because the boys are using Tufline Guides Choice - it's like rope!
I must admit that it really was a privilege being around the discussions. Watching and listening to the subtleties of how they target various areas was really interesting as well as their experiences over the years. I would love to do that again some time but that is just being greedy!
for me, I will continue using the long leader but would have no issue whatsoever with using the short leader in NC. In terms of barbs, I use barbless hooks and will continue to do so.
Hey Brandon,
I'm glad you went to the effort to take photos; they compliment a great trip report. 
It must have been an awesome experience being amongst the two world renowned GT guiding companies and their key people? 
When I was in New Cal in April 2009 with LPB, I was unprepared for their preference to use trebles and not necessarily barbless either - Rudy reminded us that he lost his best GT to a GT Recorder (barbless of course) and strongly encouraged my crew (GT newbies) to use barbed hooks and looked bemused when most of my lures were rigged with singles! 
Given Damon and the Nomad operation has a strict policy on singles as opposed to trebles, I'd be interested in your commentary on how this difference in rigging preferences played out during the trip. I dare say the conversation and sharing of intellectual property about GT techniques amongst the all four of you would have been impressive. 
I'm also interested to get your opinion on LPBs preference for a short strand of mono (200 lb) attached to a double with grommets that sits outside the rod tip as opposed to twisted leaders. Again my crew began with twisted leaders much to the amusement of Rudy , but after a couple of bite offs courtesy of the razor gang, we changed to the LPB method and did not get busted off by any GTs throughout the 6 day trip . I assume its got to do with the deep water and the use of the LPB method wouldn't be as successful in the Coral Sea or at Shoalwater due to take lack of shock absorption, rougher terrain and shallow water? 
Cheers
Craig Lupton
