Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Hook removal

I've been fishing for a lotta years, but it was only a few years ago that some crazed youngster (Sunil) showed me how to effectively remove a deeply swallowed hook from a fish.

Finding the devices to do so was almost as illusive as knowing how to do it.

Few sporting goods stores seem to carry these simple and inexpensive devices any longer, although they were popular when I was a kid back in the 50s. And, if you try to find them on line, you have to know exactly what they are called. It is best to search for "disgorger". I found Eagle Claw brand disgorgers in a store in Oklahoma City today for $0.99 each, so I bought a number of them.

If you can find one, then find a friend who knows how to use one. They are incredible.

Thank you Sunil, for giving me such enlightenment.

Always got my disgorger with me.. Also I've used a small stick with a kind of frayed broken off end too do the exact same thing before I bought a disgorger.. An old British fisherman showed me this when I was 8-10 stick with me every since, amazing how many people have no clue about this procedure..

Hey, I've got one of those but never knew what the heck it was! No idea where I got it, either.

So I take it this can be used to retrieve a hook thats been swallowed? Can somebody take a shot at describing how it's done, or is it something you really have to see?

I think I remember from Sunil's description:

Carefully evaluate hook placement within gullet while calming nerves with multiple swigs of beer. With left hand, hold fish by lower jaw. Keep slight tension on line with rod tip, positioning rod under arm or between legs. Drink rest of beer, drop bottle, and grasp hook remover with right hand. Thread line into slot on hook remover. GENTLY advance hook remover into gullet. When hook is engaged, turn about 1/4 rotation either direction and withdraw slowly. Release fish. Congratulate self and open celebratory beverage.

It's important to keep some tension on the line, but support the fish, so that there is less internal damage from both the hook and from jamming the remover in too deeply.

I never had much luck with them on BG. If the hook is swallowed deep enough that you can't see the bend in the shank, then how do you know that you've fully engaged the hook, AND pushed it down that extra little bit to disengage it from the fish? Giving it a 1/4 turn without freeing the hook first, thereby further damaging the fish, seems a real possibility? So does shoving it halfway to their tail in an effort to make sure the hook has been pushed free?

To be fair, it's been many years since I've used one of those red, disproportionate--barbell--looking abominations, so perhaps they've improved. One thing's for sure...my BG have gotten bigger...perhaps that makes a difference.

I should have saved my stringers from about 40 years ago

All in 1 for retaining your caught fish; ground anchor, scaler, somewhat of a small rough saw, and hook removal tool! Worked great!

If you keep just the right amount of tension on line, you can both see and feel when the disgorger has pushed the hook out, and with a little practice, the reduction in resistance to turning the disgorger is a further clue to success. Having said that, I've had better luck with more elongated fish that have bigger mouths, like trout, yellow perch and SMB, than with bluegills.

Of course, if you're going to drop your bluegills, you might as well just use a pair of pliers in the first place.

Geez....you drop one lousy, slippery, slimy, so-big-you-can't-get-your-hand-around-it, fish.......

Sprkplug the remover has a cut out on one side if you rotate it while trying to find the hooks bend it'll grab or you'll just keep sliding past it.. Also if the hooks too deep it's just too deep.. I've saved easily 100's of fish with mine though between that and very fine set of hemostats fish savers..

On a larger species, I see where the idea has merit. But I would have to question just how many "saved" BG, who swam off at the time of release, were turtle food a day or two later.

As long as you hold the fish tightly and don't drop it mortality rates decrease drastically

Touche'!

My thinking is that if they swallow the hook, either leave the hook or kill the fish. We use a number 2 hook to bluegill fish and they work great. An 8 inch bluegill will take the hook easily.