John E. Sox wrote:Whoa! Common sense? Two minutes? Fighting a fish until it 'settles down'? Not stopping the boat? This all sounds like over exhausting fish to me. I don't know if you are doing something different than me, but I have never had a fish tangle itself so bad that I couldn't get it released quickly. I have the same net. Maybe you are lifting up on the net or something but I just can't see a mess that bad with even the greenest of fish. And this business of 'LSC-style' trolling... aka trolling fast, not stopping the boat, and fighting fish for WAY too long... is a real pet peave of mine. Just because someone is on LSC doesn't mean that they have to troll so many lures that they can't stop the boat. If you are doing this than you are saying that is more important to catch fish than it is to be releasing them correctly. IMO you might as well be spearing them if you reel them in at 6 mph. I saw a guy on TV fight a fish for over 20 minutes on LSC! That is ridiculous! You could land a 60 lber in less time than that.
I'm not pointing the finger at you hear Mike. In fact, I'm sure that you do a good job releasing fish. Any time LSC and release tactics are mentioned in the same breath I get a little fired up. I just don't want any beginners thinking that you can fight fish until they are pooped and still have good survival rates.
This idea of netting a fish too soon needs to be explored more. Maybe someone could give some video examples of netting fish and we could comment on what we feel is correct/incorrect.
When fishing from 31 foot sea ray with 75 feet of board lines out stopping is not an option. These guys have had to find other ways of keeping fish in water. The 60 inch tanks do not allow the fish to even arch and the smooth sides prevent any scale loss. The water is cool and airrated. The fish come in are immediatly put in the tank. It as slick as I have ever seen. This is better in my opinion than leaning out over the side of a boat and trying to unhook and or cut hooks. In the tank its a piece of cake. The only thing that would make it better would be a tube leading back to water where you could just open one end of the tank and let them out. Some one still has to lift them back out of the tank and tordedo them back in the lake. I have never seen a fight go more than 5 minutes. Michelles 52 lasted about 5 minutes and we had stopped the boat. Miller slows down from 4.5 to about 2 when playing fish. His motor is at idle but they are still moving forward to keep the boards where they belong. Its not like you picture it. Maybe in the old days but not today. Kill rates are way down and concern for the fishery has replaced the kill them all mentality of years ago.
But these new tanks are worlds better than what they used to do out there. Like I said Michelle and I still stop the boat ,kill the engine and release by hand because we can. Our boat has low enough sides to be able to do that. You cant even think about that on cruiser like Millers boat.
Now as for tiring out a fish dont twist my words. An extra run or two that takes 15 seconds is moot. What I think is savage and cruel to these fish is the tactic of horseing them in with 6x hooks and 200 lb line in 5 seconds flat and watching them slam into the side of the boat for 2 minutes. There are many videos on you tube of this nonsense. You see it goes both ways. I get a sick feeling every time I hear some idiot tell another that he has to get this fish into the net as fast as possible. This nonsense leads to guys straightening out hooks ripping lures loose and injuring fish. When I say Common sense I mean just that. Carefull, relaxed, in control of the situation and being safe first. I do not advocte playing fish to death and I do not advocate horsing them in either. I watch Mesikomer horse fish all the time . Hes an Idiot for letting these fish thrash and head shake on a tight line at boatside. The smart guy gets his rod down and inverts and lets the fish take a little line. Thats common sense. I would prefer to subdue a big fish with finese than with brute force.
I tried the fast as you can thing for several years. No more. I had many fish wrap up in the old Beckman magnum with the deep bag. Only one so far in the Finsaver. My complaint about the fin saver is the bag is not deep enough. I could use two more feet. The fin saver is a better bag but when you get one wrapped in it,its worse than the old wide mesh for getting it unwrapped.
Now for another situation that came up where I did the right thing and it required bringing the fish into the boat to save its life. I was tossing a 205 crane over some cabbage when a smaller musky about 28 inches inhaled the bait to where the tail hook was not hooked but dangling deep in this fishes throat. Of course it was thrashing to beat the band. Everytime I used the jaw spreaders to open its mouth it would twist out of the hold. I could not get the angle or keep the fish still while it was suspended in the net. So I performed a three step process that worked great. I brought the fish INTO THE BOAT and had michelle hold it still while I cut all three hooks loose. I retrieved the thoat hook from the back side of the gills . It was brilliant. I then put the fish back in the net pen and let it settle down . It still had two treble hooks and one was at the base of its gills almost in the red and buried deep. I brought it back into the boat and cut the hooks off and retrieved the barbs with needle nose pliars. This took two more steps to get them. We sat with the fish for half an hour . I was thankfull the water was in the low 60's . I am confident this fish survived but I had to think outside the norm. This is where common sense comes into play. If I would have kept it in water and tried forcing the issue that fish would have got tore up in the throat and died. It had to be imobilized to get those hooks out. THE TRUTH is there is no set way or method that works every time. If you think there is you are going to be schooled and it will hurt.
Will, you dont even think about it any more as it is all reflex with you. This comes with many years of repeat performance. Its the same with us . We just do what has to be done to land,unhook and release safely. Most of the time its fast and easy other times it is nasty and difficult. Where I differ with many of the so called experts that write articles and sell videos and such is this. There is no written rule that everyone should follow except to use caution, common sense and just do the best you can to get them back with out harm. The more fish you handle with that mind set the better you will get, at recognizing the body language of these fish and making the right decisions. The guys on St. Clair have improved thier release methods in huge ways from the oild days of just tossing them in the prop wash. So John, rest assured that there are more guys on that lake that care than ever before .
To all the new guys that are heading out this year my advice is to get a big net. Make sure you have good side cutters or Knipex cutters. Good long nose pliers, several pairs. Good jaw spreaders. Dont over play a fish but with muskies that rarely happens. they make several runs and are most of the time ready to come into the net. Dont try to horse a fish in before its ready as this can lead to excessive head thrashing and can even bring one into the boat with you(happened to me) . Use your heads,be safe and do the best you can. No one can ask for more. It starts with caring about the fish and I think most all of us do. But never elevate the fish to apoint where you would risk your hand or more to save it. You are more important than any fish of any species. Have a safe 2008. I know we will. Mike and Michelle
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