BerkleyBoy,
Sorry for the late response. From what I saw they were just standing on the road watching(at the top hole with the log at the beginning of it) not even wetting a line and the barbed hooks were tied on to their rods. I had the same little barb incident as you berkley boy, except I got checked, but luckily I had a gamakatsu hook on with a real fine barb that he didn't see, but it still taught me my lesson so now I pinch my barbs the night before.