I know we've discussed proper techniques in the past, but I'm still torn. Saturday, I took my friend out fishing @ Murray, and he banged a 36 trolling. As soon as I got her into the net, she went absolutely hog wild, tangling the hooks in the net. My first thought is to always get the fish swimming again ASAP. I was able to get her unhooked with her head underwater, and as she sat in the bottom of the net, I busied myself getting the net untagled from the hooks. I wanted so badly to just reach down and take her, but the thought of possibly getting hooks in me and back in her made me cringe. Am I just being a baby? The ol' girl had plenty of fight in her after the quick photo, and gave us a nice shower, so I'm pretty sure she was absolutely fine. I'm guessing the unhooking took 2-2.5 min.
well a huge thing now is to have a net with the THICK bag so the hooks dont get tangled in it. We had an old frabil with a thin net and that thing was always a pain to get fish out of because the fish and bait would tangle everytime. Now we have a new frabil with the thick net and it is so easy to unhook the fish because the bait barely gets tangled in it. I would say that if the hooks are really tangled but out of the way you could go and grab the fish real quick; it is dangerous though so be careful – Probably was a good idea to get the lure out of the way if your friend was going to hold it up if he didnt have much experience holding big fish. I almost got in trouble with my brother's (jon) 49" because i was trying to untangle the fish and lure from the net and the fish started rolling almost putting the hooks right in my hand (this was with our old frabil with the thin netting). If the fish is unhooked and in the water (in the bottom of the net) you have a little time to unhook the lure. It is a little different now with the water being so hot but at other times the fish are just fine if they are laying in the bottom of the net unhooked. It sounds like you did a good job and got the fished unhooked quickly and I know you just bought that net at the ovid outing but if you have a little money laying around I would highly suggest a new/big net with the THICK bag.
Safty first for me.Get the lure out of there unless its absolutly so tangled
your not worried about it.The thing that has helped the fish the most in my case is not taking pictures of what I call "smaller fish".Now to each his own,I and wont slam anyone for wanting a pic of a muskie,but for me
the smaller ones just get let go now.A good muskie net does help.
Do the best ya can,thats about all you can do.
Good point Kid. Pictures are cool but take them as little as 'needed'.
You can also take some hooks off of baits to help speed up your releases. I remove the middle hook or rear hook on most crankbaits/jerkbaits and the front hook on tandem bucktails. This makes for less hooks to remove or get caught in the net. I actually feel that my landing percentage has gone up on some of these baits by removing hooks.
Some of you might disagree with this, but, I also try release a lot of fish without a net. If a fish comes in quick and isn't hooked badly, I will usually grab my hook-outs and remove the hooks over the side of the boat. This is for smaller fish only. Somewhere around the 3-foot range is where I usually just net the fish regardless of how badly they are hooked. If you don't feel safe doing this then you should just net them all.
Given the situation Jim, it sounds to me like you did the right thing. 2 minutes of digging the lure out of the net, with the fish in the water and breathing, it is not an unreasonable thing to get a quick pic for your buddy. Most of the time its best to get the lure out of there before grabbing the fish, unless the lure is totally buried or out of harms way like this the you can leave it in. Rely on your judgement of how exhausted the fish is too, all those factors- and you will make the right decision for fish & fisherman!
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