Quote:
Originally posted by damn yankee:
I've read that touching fish with your hands can cause them damage to their slime layer exposing them to greater risk of infection, parasites, etc.
If you wet your hands first there is less risk of that. Sometimes you are better off wetting your hands and supporting the fish's weight vs. a lip hold if it's a very heavy or large fish. A fish like the 25 lb. bass caught and released in California may have received serious spinal column damage from a lip hold.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.