Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Methods to successfully release fish

A lot has been written about releasing fish. In my experience, it is relatively easy to release larger fish but much harder to successfully release small fish. It seems like if you look at yellow perch crosswise, they die. Smaller bluegills are also hard to release successfully.

For a long time, I made all of our hooks barbless but that didn't really seem to help much. If a fish swallowed the hook, it seemed to die no matter what I did.

We tried circle hooks and our mortality dropped dramatically immediately. Even the yellow perch were lip caught and successfully released.

For me, this is an extremely important subject because people feel really bad about having a fish die when they throw them back.

Does anyone else have any experiences or ideas about releasing small fish?

From my experience the only way to hook a small fish deep is to either have a really unexperienced angler or to not be using a bobber. If you use a bobber and set the hook when it goes down you should never get a hook in a BG that bad. If you can't use a bobber then just keep a nice tight line....dont let the fish run like you would a big cat or carp.

You may also try fly fishing for gills. It's really fun especially when you get some nice sized ones on and I really doubt you could let the hook get too deep on them.

One question I have is are you using live baits or some type of artificial? Also what depth are you fishing at? Deeper water means that it will be harder to detect the bite, especially on smaller fish.

tritonvt: most of the people that fish our lake have little or no experience fishing. Many of them have very little physical capabilities so fly fishing or even holding a rod are out of the question. This means that improving the ability of the people to fish is not an option.

Yellow perch are the worst hook swallowers but sometimes small bluegill take the hook deep.

We use minnows which I buy by the gallons. I have to make sure that when people fish, they catch fish immediately and lots of them. Our fish swallow worms much worse than minnows but don't recognize them as something to eat as readily. About the smallest minnows (fatheads) we use are 1 1/2" long.

Norm, Cut the line and leave the hook. They will usually dissolve over time with no effect on the fish. I have to re-tie a lot but seldom find a dead fish.

At our lake, the most people we having fishing at one time (that we know of) is about 5 people who would all be our friends.

We debarb all of the hooks for live bait fishing and lures.

We also keep these "plunger" type things around. I don't know what they're called, but they are basically a 7-8" red plastic shaft with two oval shaped balls on either end. On ball is smaller for smaller fish, and the other ball is bigger for bigger fish. We have about 95% plus in de-hooking fish when they are gullet hooked. Like Dave says, if it's too far in, we cut the line and leave the hook.

For Norm, I don't know if you are at your lake when people fish your lake.

If your not comfortable with leaving the hook in or dont have good success in doing so, then you could always carry around a good pair of wire cutters. Just cut somewhere between the barb and where it is hooked.... then you could just simply slide the hook out back out the other direction. That's what doctor do when someone gets hooked and the barb is inside the flesh. (I know from experience ) I know that some smaller fish may have trouble reswallowing the hook, especially wide gap circle hooks.

Chris

We did used to just cut the leader off and we would catch fish with 3-4 leaders and hooks in their mouths. Grabbing the hook with a needle nose plierls and then holding the pliers facing up and the fish facing down and shaking usually usually got the fish off cleanly. The weight of the fish pushing down released the fish from the hook.

I've not found any benefit from making hooks barbless inspite of so many comments to the contrary.

Barbless circle hooks are a completely different matter. 98% of the time the fish is lip hooked. The other two percent of the time, we can easily rotate the hook out. Bullheads almost always get gut hooked but these circle hooks worked even with them.

I agree about the Circle hooks, they work great.

So has anyone seen these red hook removers? They cost like 99 cents a piece. The basic concept is the same as Norm describes with the pliers & holding the fish upside down, but you just slide this thing down the line to the hook, and push it into the gullet (while holding the line taught), and it unseats the hook as it moves into the gullet & it then it all slides back out.

It seems like no one knows what I'm trying to describe. I think this tool is a must have for any angler, especially for catch and release.

Chris, I got hooked in my middle toe by a energetic 18-20" smallmouth who was hooked to my crankbait. Using the new leverage created by hooking my toe (it was the summer...I was wearing sandles), the smallie was thusly able to thrash on the shore and free himself of my lure. He then flopped back into the water and left me, hooked to my own crankbait.

On the hook issue, the de-barbing or flatening of the barb does far, far, less tissue damage to the fish. I think that alone is benefit enough, especially for catch and release. By the way, the crankbait was not de-barbed.

Sunil I've seen what you are talking about...they sell them at Wal-mart, but I never got one cause they looked cheap and I was skeptical. Thanks for the info.

Chris

Dave Willis--we talked once about the effect of barbed vrs. barbless hooks on released fish but I don't remeember exactly what we said. Would you mind commenting on this subject?

Norm -- there have been scads and scads of research projects on hooking mortality that compared barbed vs. barbless hooks. Maybe I can make two overview comments.

1. I would contend that we can see no decrease in hooking mortality from barbless hooks. I know, I know: this does not fit with "common sense," and some folks will want to throw rocks at me! However, I can show you just as many studies where barbless hooks had the same or more mortality as did the barbed hooks. It sort of splits out on a 50:50 basis. The Trout Unlimited anglers don't like to hear this, but it's true. We just don't have evidence that barbless hooks reduce hooking mortality, even though common sense says they will be handled less and should have higher survival.

2. There have been a couple more recent studies actually showing that barbless hooks can cause MORE mortality than barbed hooks. One study was on bluegills in Nebraska, and another was on largmeouth bass. So, HOW CAN THIS BE? Well, the contention in those two studies was that the barbless hooks would actually penetrate further, and a greater portion of fish hooked in the roof of the mouth would have the hooks penetrate the brain case.

So, we'll see what kind of hornets nest this might create. However, that's my story and I'm stocking to it! :-)

Dave

Lads I have a website for you all to check out!!!

There is an article in the latest edition of Outdoor Canada about a 'new' method for getting fish off the hook. I have been waiting for them to post it to their website so I could post the link and get some feedback on how successful it is!

Check out this link:
Outdoor Canada "Off the hook" article

Pottsy, Excellent article! As a tournament angler, I've known of this method for several years, but not too many people do. These illustrations are wonderful, and I hope all pondowners check it out! It works!

One question since you've tried it....

What did the article mean by rolling the hook? I wasn't sure if that meant turn the hook in your fingers...or if it meant to push the eye towards the fish and roll the barb end out. Communication can be so difficult on the internet sometimes....

Chris

Chris, What I do is push the fishing line out of the last gill rake closest to the throat of the fish. Pull on the line, and that will roll the hook so you can grab it with a pair of needle nose pliers. This is important, so you don't damage any other gill rakes. Then push down on the bottom of the hook as you pull it out, away from the barb, to minimalize damage to the fish from the barb.Have you seen an illustration on how to remove a hook from your body? Same principal.

I'm not looking to challenge anyone on the barb vs. no barb issue. I merely prefer to de-barb the hooks.

I also fish w/ smaller hooks, so there's only so much penetration, barb or not.

That article is nice. I'll have to try that. But this red "plunger" thing works great & would work fine for what was shown in those illustrations.

I never want to leave a hook in, so I'll incorporate the technique discussed in the article as my last resort, hopefully.

Sunil -- I wasn't trying to be too aggressive on the barbed vs. barbless issue, either, so I hope you didn’t get that impression. Your comment brought up about three points in my mind.

First, when I first starting looking into this issue, I was surprised that we couldn't show a biological effect favoring barbless over barbed hooks. I had guessed otherwise, just based on common sense. So, perhaps I didn't do a good enough job of simply expressing my surprise.

Second, there is no DISADVANTAGE to pressing down your barbs. For example, inexperienced anglers find it easier to remove barbless hooks. I know that I said a couple of studies found that barbless hooks can actually cause more damage, but I still go back to my overall statement -- if you look at all the numerous studies, you can't see an clear advantage to barbed or barbless.

Now, perhaps a final point should be made about public waters, rather than everyone’s private ponds. On public waters, I'd prefer not to institute a barbless regulation, as we can't justify it based on biology. Public water managers are faced with ever-increasing complexity in regulations as more and more people use the public resource [maybe I should say that anglers are faced with that increasing complexity! :-) ]. So, I don't think it helps to impose unnecessary or unjustified regulations. I guess that’s just opinion, isn’t it?

Dave

Dave, no offense taken whatsoever. I appreciate the information you presented. I also have two new things to try from this thread: 1) the circle hooks; and 2) the de-hooking technique.

I think one of the greatest benefits of this site is the comparison of everyone's individual experiences to the vast scientific body of knowledge.

Sunil, I think that the tool you described is called a disgorger. I've used them alot and have had really good success with them. I've had times where I couldn't even see how far a little blugill swallowed the hook but the trusty disgorger had him back in the water in a matter of seconds.
What I havn't had so much success with is the circle hooks. I've mostly used them for 1-1.5 lb catfish, but bass and catfish alike they just never seem to have any trouble at all geting hooked way down deep. Of all fish I've caught on circle hooks I've only had 2 get lip hooked. I had far better luck just using regular J hooks and trying to quickly set the hook before they got a chance to swallow it. And if I was too slow I found that the disgorger worked very well with the J hooks but could not be used at all with the circle hooks. Even if hooked in the roof of the mouth it seemed to take half the time to remove the J hook than a circle hook.
Was I using them incorrecly or are small catfish just masters at geting gut hooked?
-Scott

What I like to use on panfish with small hooks is surgical forceps. They are very narrow and you can clamp them onto the hook making it easier to remove. I got them from the emergency room after getting stitches, but I see them for sale now in some sporting goods stores.