Anyone else feel bad about foul hooking and accidential rough fish handling?

[Coach Potter]

Not sure why foul hooking a fish is considered worse for the trout (unless it is near the eyes or gills) than tranditional in the mouth or worse - throat/gills when the fish chokes the fly down? Most of the fish I foul hook is somewhere in the body, tail, or fin and it doesn't really penatrate the skin or slightly in the muscle tissue at worse. It does take a lot longer to get the trout in - but after a bit of reviving - they are ready to go with no major injury.

As mentioned about - we do have consider this sport as a Blood Sport - and there will be times when we do get them in the eye or in the gills and have a bleeder. That is why I am not really in favor of 100% C&R in some of our flyfish only waters, just in case we get a bleeder and at times no matter how careful we are - there will a few execeptions that the fish is going to die and in my opinion we should keep be able to keep those severally injured - unless we are certain that a osprey, eagle, or otter will benefit from it. It pains me to release an injured fish which I know most likely will not make it because of the 100% C&R rules. One fish limits are better in my opinion, but then again maybe too many folks will take advantage of that situation thus defeating the purpose of why a 100% C&R is implemented in the first place.

Peach

First off, I'm not touch feely about any fish. Some number of fish are going to die every year from something. I also don't eat fish so my intention is to never kill one but that's ONLY because I don't plan on eating them. I take the best care I can but I'm not losing sleep over any of it...that's just me and doesn't have to be you.

I think trout are different than warm water species because 1- they are more fragile than warm water species 2- they have teeth and can't be lipped when landed. When I land a bass, crappie, blue gill etc. I can lip them and remove the hook without really touching or squeezing the body. Cold water species such as Pike, Walleye and Musky are a lot tougher than any of the various trout species.

I used to bird hunt because I ate birds. If I wound a bird I assume it's going to die. Had I made a better shot it was also going to die. The only difference was one I could eat and the other I couldn't and I was likely going to kill a fair number of them anyway. If I was truly concerned about the population of a certain bird species then I wouldn't hunt them.

I have a completely different view of wounded big game than wounded waterfowl or upland birds...again just just me. I can only put a tag on one deer, as it should be. If I mortally wound a deer and don't recover it I WIIL and HAVE lost sleep over that. Lots of reasons I feel that way...both practical and emotional.

 

[GAT]

To answer the question:

Yes I do.

 

[Flybox1]

my scud accidentally @sshooked a water rat at rocky ford. had to break her off. one tough rat. pissed i lost my scud.....

I hate foul-hooking fish.

 

[dbaken]

I started using a Ketchum release tool a few years ago to unhook most trout. Works much better than hemostats generally, easier on the fish and easier on the fly. Really reduces accidental mishandling for me.

 

[Rob Allen]

One thing I learned growing up sight fishing for summer steelhead. If you spend enough time dead drifting flies past visible fish you WILL eventually snag them and that's not ok to do.
Try a couple patterns a few drifts each and move on, anything else if flagrant snagging.

My biggest problem with snagging fish has been fishing pods of chum salmon with sink tips. Lots of fish that take too, not sure how to avoid the foul hooking there. Maybe. Choose not to fish densely populated pools and move on to find the real target, coho.

As for rough handling, it does happen from time to time and the fish nearly always survive anyway. The worst handing I have encountered had been people digging fish out of nets better for them to flop around in shallow water than being manhandled out of a net.

I feel extremely bad about foul hooked fish, much less about roughshod fish handeling.handling.. these are rough and tumble animals not fine chins regardless what the common fly fishing community seems to think.
A foul hooked fish comes from my bad technique, if I rough handle a fish it's due to an unforeseeable accident.

 

[clarkman]

Do I worry about it? sure, a little (but it happens). do I lose sleep over it? not at all.

I'm comfortable in my ability to handle fish in the best way possible given the circumstances. I do my best to handle all fish I catch (invasives & natives) minimally and get them back ASAP (obviously, taking photos adds stress, but that's for another thread).

 

[DFG]

I started out with barbless hooks (or crimped barbs) back when I learned to fly fish and have never wanted to fish with barbs. That simplifies unhooking enormously. It also helps when others hook themselves (I'm saying that for a friend.)

 

[Zak]

I started out with barbless hooks (or crimped barbs) back when I learned to fly fish and have never wanted to fish with barbs. That simplifies unhooking enormously. It also helps when others hook themselves (I'm saying that for a friend.)

Same here. I never fish with barbed hooks any more.

 

[Sam Roffe]

I deep hooked a trout more than once. This one time I felt bad and since it was legal to keep I kept it and cooked it up. Tasted like mud, couldn’t eat it. That part wasting it made me feel worse than letting it die and becoming food for another predator.

 

[DFG]

My daughter and I did a guided float several years back on the Snake and the guide's opinion was that barbed hooks were best. (This absolutely disgusted my daughter.) Maybe my expectations are a bit too high, but I admit to expecting guides to be positive examples of stewardship! Especially since they come in contact with lots of folks still in the learning stage.

 

[Rob Allen]

My daughter and I did a guided float several years back on the Snake and the guide's opinion was that barbed hooks were best. (This absolutely disgusted my daughter.) Maybe my expectations are a bit too high, but I admit to expecting guides to be positive examples of stewardship! Especially since they come in contact with lots of folks still in the learning stage.

Barbed hooks though they may not be the best are not an indication of poor stewardship.

 

[sal_the_salmon]

its a large part of why i havnt been fishing for native wild fish much as of late.

 

[NRC]

In Seward on a work trip this week I stopped by a crowded beach to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out there’s a hatchery run of sockeye going up the creek there, and it was a bona fide snag fishery. First time I’ve had the misfortune of watching that in action.

You should have been there, @Josh . You’d feel a lot better about your unintentional mishaps.

But yeah, to answer the question - I feel worse when it’s a valued wild species like sea run cutthroat as opposed to say a hatchery trout or a spiny ray. I try to treat all the fish well (aside from, um, stabbing them in the mouth and netting them), but killing a sea run genuinely ruins a good day of fishing. Thankfully there have been some great posts on the erstwhile forum providing guidance about best hooks/sizes to minimize such incidents.

 

[Mukman]

Deep hooked a little dink recently on a local lake. As has been stated by many here, I felt crappy about it. Tried to resuscitate for a few minutes, but it was going nowhere except back floating. I kicked away about 10 -15 feet, heard a loud swoosh and a bald eagle swooped in and got its lunch. Felt worse then. Eagle should have to work for it.

 

[swimmy]

I was landing a fish today and out of nowhere a dog ran up behind me and grabbed the fish in his mouth. Luckily the dog didn't get a hook in its mouth.

I was able to get the fish free and released.

Never had that happen before.

 

[SurfnFish]

Pre flouro, fussy spring fed fishery, big trout, only takes on 6x with 20x flies, Bungi Butt between leader and line for a shock absorber..stuck a pig, long fight, gently revivied it until able to swim off sluggishly...found it floating upside down in the shallows the next day...bummed me out enough to quit fishing there
Flouro a game changer...has saved a lot of catch and release trout with the ability to size up for shorter fights...Crane Prairie use 3x with a tighter drag and have at it...East Lake 4x with the same drag...rather lose a fish than LOSE a fish

 

[Brute]

Always hate to see a fish I hooked and fully intend to release not make it…it happens very rarely.

When I was in Iceland, I hooked and landed a 30” brown…the net I was using had a 19” width from tip to handle, and I marked the handle where the tail landed to measure later. I fought the fish on a 6wt, and made several long runs downstream. After landing the fish and holding it by the tail to revive it, it seemed fine and it swam off. Totally stoked, I climbed the steep bank up to the dirt road to walk to another section of the river. I looked down to the river, and saw that beautiful fish laying on its side on a gravel bar. I left my gear on the upper bank and made my way back down the steep bank and found a way to wade to the bar…just before I reached the fish, she saw me and righted herself and kicked away into deeper water. I finally made my way back up the bank, and walked the road in the direction the fish swam…and never saw her again. To this day, I hoped she made it…that was a nine lb trout…

 

[clarkman]

I was landing a fish today and out of nowhere a dog ran up behind me and grabbed the fish in his mouth. Luckily the dog didn't get a hook in its mouth.

I was able to get the fish free and released.

Never had that happen before.

was it a black lab who answered to Ruby? oh wait, she's sleeping on my feet....

 

[dirty dog]

The rough release that breaks my heart the most is.
I set the hook and a little 4" or 5" trout comes flying out of the water, comes off the hook and lands in the rocks.
Poor thing is so stunned never to recover or dead by the time I get to it.
Hooked in the eye is another that hurts my feelings.
I have caught a few trout that have had an eye missing and they were good fighters and I was able to release them unharmed.
I try my best to not handle the fish I want to release.
I feel that I have a 95 plus % of survivors.