Occasionally, thanks to your skill or luck (or both), a fish is going to take your fly. The sequence of the events that follow is never certain, but often results in a fish that needs to be landed and, more often than not, released. Not surprisingly, this is when a number of fish are injured. In the not-too-distant past, such injuries weren’t a significant concern. The fish was destined for the table, so missing scales, damaged fins, or blood loss weren’t considered problems. As Russ Chatham said in the movie Rivers of a Lost Coast, “we didn’t give a XXXX about conservation back then.”
Things are different now. The decline of steelhead and salmon, so painfully described in Rivers of a Lost Coast, has been well documented, but other species are also in trouble. California’s current list of threatened and endangered freshwater fish identifies 34 species. Sadly, more are sure to follow. While declines in fish populations are usually due to numerous factors, it is irresponsible for fly fishers to assume our impact on the remaining stocks is insignificant. A catch and release (C&R) mortality rate of 10 percent is enough to impair the recovery of threatened species. Steelhead and salmon in many of the state’s small coastal streams are an excellent example of fish populations that can be seriously harmed by C&R-related mortality.
If 10 percent postcapture mortality sounds high, I have some sobering news for you. Data provided in the paper “Hooking Mortality: A Review for Recreational Fisheries” (Reviews in Fisheries Science 2, no. 2 [1994], pp. 123–56) indicates that the C&R practices of fly fishers result in rainbow trout mortality rates ranging from 5 percent to 35 percent. Unfortunately, far too many well-meaning fly fishers are unknowingly practicing ineffective C&R, which results in many fish dying minutes, hours, or even days after release.
I always thought I used the right gear and practiced effective C&R. It turns out I was doing a lot of things that were far from optimal and in some cases just plain wrong. This epiphany was painful, to say the least, but at least it gave me something I could act on. I thought it was important to share this information.
Five Minutes
Anyone who is serious about the survival of their catch should make sure they land and release their fish quickly. This is hardly news to most fly fishers. But what exactly does “quickly” mean? As you might have guessed, the answer isn’t straightforward. In fight-or-flight mode, organisms rapidly exceed the oxygen-carrying capacity of their blood, resulting in a condition called acidosis. The more severe the acidosis, the less likely the fish is to survive.
How the heck does a fly fisher know if a fish has experienced lethal acidosis? It’s not as if we can draw a blood sample and run lab tests. Thankfully, there are a number of scientific papers that, with some careful reading and analysis, can yield a useful rule of thumb. Based on the studies I looked at, you can assume nonlethal acidosis if the fish is brought to hand within five minutes. This is a relatively conservative number, but by no means impractical. The vast majority of fish we catch can be landed in five minutes or less.
If the fish is in good physical condition, and the water temperature is in the ideal range for that species, it may be able to survive up to 10 minutes of vigorous fight. Beyond that, the odds of survival go down significantly.
Clearly, five minutes is plenty of time to land small Sierra brookies or farm pond panfish, but what about bigger fish, such as steelhead and stripers? You have to know the limits of your gear to bring these fish quickly to hand. Tarpon fly fishers are perhaps the very best at executing fast fights. You can’t screw around when a long, graphite twig and skinny plastic line directly connect you to one hundred-plus pounds of ocean-fit fish. The key to a fast fight is a low rod angle and a drag set to about 80 percent of the tippet’s strength. Holding the rod that low may look odd and might even get flak from guides, but there’s no overcoming the laws of physics. Tarpon expert Andy Mills provides a nice explanation of the technique in an online video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWXskIPu9SE.
Once you’ve seen the video, string up some trout gear and knot a piece of 5X or 6X tippet to something solid. I’m willing to bet that when you use the right technique, you’ll find it’s a lot harder to break the tippet than you ever imagined. Apply similar fish-fighting techniques on the water, and five minutes will be plenty of time to land almost every fish you hook.
Hooks
As most fly fishers are only too well aware, hooks are responsible for the majority of problems when releasing fish. Depending on the location, depth of penetration, and the presence or absence of barbs, hook removal can be premature (the fish gets off before the fight ends) or close to impossible. While certainly not foolproof, barbless hooks are usually easier to remove and generally cause less tissue damage. Does that really make a difference? A number of studies have evaluated the mortality rate of barbed and barbless hooks. While the percentages vary (depending on a number of factors), overall, barbless hooks reduce mortality by about 50 percent. That makes going barbless the single most effective C&R measure you can implement.
Some anglers are reluctant to go barbless, fearing that doing so will reduce the number of fish they land. In reality, the number of fish you will lose is probably much lower than you imagine and with better fighting techniques can be brought down to a level that is insignificant. Newbies can be excused for poor fish-fighting techniques — the rest of us can’t.
If you want to explore C&R hook technology further, take a hard look at barbless circle hooks. A study by the National Marine Fisheries Service Southeast Fisheries Science Center found that 97 percent of fish were lip-hooked when circle hooks were used, as compared with 50 percent for standard J hooks. A number of folks scoff at using circles, suggesting they have no place in fly fishing. Talk to anglers who have actually taken the time to learn how to use them properly and you’ll often get a different story. I converted most of my surf and striper flies to barbless circles years ago. They are also well suited to egg, worm, and streamer patterns. The initial hookup rate can be a bit lower than conventional J hooks, but that is usually due to faulty hook-setting technique. You don’t strike with circles — just tighten the line, and the fish does the rest. Tame your strike response, and you’ll catch and release plenty of fish on circles.
Wet Release
Almost every published research paper has found significantly greater survival rates when fish aren’t exposed to air. A paper in the journal Fisheries, “Fish Out of Water: How Much Air Is Too Much?,” Fisheries 40, no. 9 (September 2015), http://www.fecpl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/AirExp.pdf, suggests that anything more than 10 seconds of exposure to air will compromise survival for some species. Trout Unlimited recently conducted a review of the current science and concluded that exposure to air should be no more than 15 to 20 seconds.
It turns out that survival isn’t the only problem with exposure to air — taking a fish out of the water can harm future generations, too. As little as 10 seconds of exposure reduced the fecundity of Atlantic salmon, and smallmouth bass were observed to more readily abandon their nests when exposed to air. Sadly, wet release is infrequently mentioned in fishing magazines and almost eliminates the popular “grip-and-grin” photos. It’s not that hard to release a fish without taking it out of the water, and if you really want a photo, you can do that without hoisting it aloft.
It just takes a bit of thought and an ounce of preparation.
Handling Fish
Perhaps the main difficulty with wet release is controlling the fish while the hook is removed. Smaller fish can be managed by simply holding the leader taut and popping the fly out. But this can be impractical with larger fish, especially those that have been fought quickly and still have plenty of kick. For trout and most other soft-finned species, you can control the fish by gently grasping it just behind the head and gills. How you grasp the fish is very important. It is vital that you don’t remove the fish’s protective slime layer or damage its internal organs. One piece of kit that really helps with this is a mesh glove like Midstream’s Landing Hand (invented by Bill and Kate Howe) or the Fish Tailer from Orvis. These provide a better grip with much less pressure than you’d need when using bare hands. If you have a particularly lively fish, holding it upside down will often (though not always) calm it down. With larger fish and those that have spiny fins, you can sometimes grip them just in front of the tail. Once you have the fish under control, raise the head just far enough to see the fly. If you can’t remove the hook in under 10 seconds, lower the fish back into the water so it can breathe and you can figure out what to do next.
Lipping
For some species, such as largemouth bass and stripers, you can control the fish by grasping the lower lip between your thumb and forefinger. This is definitely something you want to do while the fish is in the water. I used to pull stripers out of the surf and onto wet sand by their lower jaw. That was how the “experts” did it in the fishing magazines, so I assumed it was OK. It isn’t. It can dislocate the jaw and separate the cartilage that connects the head to the body. Lip a fish only if its weight is fully supported by water. And don’t force the jaw down like many conventional bass guys do. The mouth only needs to be opened far enough to remove the fly.
For a while, mechanical lip grippers were the “must have” tool. They appeared in countless magazine photos. It seemed as if everyone was using them to land and weigh fish, “safe” in the knowledge that the fish was unharmed. It turns out these grips can do considerable damage. One study found that 40 percent of bonefish that were lipped with a popular device suffered severe injuries, including splitting the mandible and separating the tongue from the floor of the mouth. How long do you think you’d survive in the wild with a broken jaw? Fish that suffer that sort of damage will swim away and die later from disease or starvation.
Landing Nets
Sometimes, you can’t release a fish without netting it. This additional step isn’t without consequences for the fish, so it is important to have the best type of net and use it appropriately. Since exposure to air is a significant factor in C&R mortality, you are going to want to keep the netted fish in the water while you remove the hook. If that isn’t practical, make sure to keep air exposure to less than 10 seconds. It helps to spend a few seconds evaluating the situation and ensuring you have the right tools at hand before you raise the net.
So what type of landing net is best? Type “catch and release landing nets” into a search engine and you’ll likely get over six million results. Even if you ignore 99.9 percent of them, you still have more than six thousand things to read. Let’s make this a bit less painful. The first and most obvious answer is use a net that is big enough to hold the fish. Now let’s consider net material.
A 2002 paper in the journal Fisheries Research evaluated the effect of net mesh on injury and mortality in bluegills. The study found all mesh types caused some mortality, with levels ranging from 4 to 14 percent within seven days. The main cause of death was tail fin damage and fungal lesions. Knotted mesh nets had the highest mortality rates, so scratch these off your list. Rubber nets were the least likely to cause injury and death, though soft, knotless mesh wasn’t far behind. From a C&R perspective, either material is suitable if the net is the right size and used properly. One added advantage of rubber nets is they won’t snag flies.
Many landing nets have a cone-shaped bag, which tends to force fish into a bowed shape. This can increase the risk of tail fin damage. Flat-bottom nets are less likely to force the tail into the mesh, but even these aren’t perfect. I figured there had to be a better solution. To get a handle on this, I turned to the work of fisheries biologists. In some cases, these folks surgically insert large archival tags inside the fish’s body, a procedure far more invasive than hook removal. Research budgets are usually super tight, so scientists can’t afford to go far offshore and place an expensive tag in a fish only to have it die days or weeks later. Their choice of gear has to be well thought out. Most biologists use a cradle to control the fish during tagging. Like a cattle crush, the cradle keeps the fish from flopping about while the biologist deftly wields a scalpel or tag gun.
A cradle can double as a landing net. In fact, a number of forward-thinking steelhead anglers are already using them. They are relatively simple to use and can make unhooking large, lively fish a bit easier than conventionally shaped nets. Lonnie Brooks of Fishing Addicts Northwest has a pretty good YouTube video showing how to use a cradle on a wild steelhead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcZBAB4fz1Q.
Cumings, Frabil, and Loki all make cradle nets, and at $50 to $80, they aren’t too expensive. For something really special, check out the beautiful wood-handled cradles sold by Rushton Landing Nets. If money is really tight or you just like making stuff, it’s pretty easy to fabricate a serviceable cradle net. Just get some schedule 40 PVC pipe, a pack of zip ties, and a large (24-by-36-inch) fine-mesh laundry bag. The whole shebang shouldn’t cost you more than a Jackson.
Fly Removal
Once you have the fish under control, it’s time to remove the fly. For most lip-hooked fish that don’t have sharp teeth, just keep a taut leader and slide your fingers down to the fly and pop it out. If the fish has pointy teeth, you’ll probably want a hook-removal tool. A pair of forceps (clamps) is a quick and easy option. For fish with a mouth full of razorblades, a pair of cheap hardware store needle-nose pliers works surprisingly well. I use these whenever I have to unbutton larger halibut or lingcod, both of which can quickly turn unhooking into a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Things get a bit more complicated if the fly is lodged inside the mouth. If the fly is clearly visible, you should be able to remove it with forceps. If you can see the fly, but can’t tell exactly where it has penetrated, you are better off using a hook remover that self-aligns and works by feel. I ran some tests on several hook-removal tools to see which ones really worked. Two products stood out.
Split-tube tools such as the Lamson/ Waterworks Ketchum Release are simple to use. I like this type of hook remover when I am wading and can easily reach the fish. It takes just seconds to slip the tool onto the tippet, slide it down to the fish, and pop the fly free. Most of the time, this can be done without ever handling the fish, which clearly improves the odds of survival. Trout anglers should get one of these and use it religiously.
The other tool that worked well is basically a pigtail of stiff wire. I had previously ignored this device, because it looks so cheap and crude. That was a mistake. I found it performed surprisingly well with
poppers and Clousers, which can sometimes be difficult to remove. The pigtail quickly and cleanly extracted these flies, regardless of location and orientation in the mouth. Saltwater and steelhead fly fishers should take a look at ARC’s dehooker, which handles hooks all the way up to a monstrous 9/0. It is made from stainless steel, so you don’t have to worry about it rusting away in your tackle bag.
Anyone with a modicum of DIY skill can make their own pigtail dehooker. All you need is a wire coat hanger, a pair of pliers, and a couple of minutes. I could try to explain how to make the pigtail and compound bend, but it is much easier if you simply take a look at pictures of dehookers online. Type “notched dehooking device with offsets” or “fish dehooking device US 7818914 B1” into Google’s patent search and you’ll find diagrams that will make things pretty obvious. If you mount the tool onto a long handle, you can use it to release fish that can’t be brought close to hand. This is particularly helpful when fishing from pontoon boats and high-sided watercraft. A long-handled hook remover almost eliminates the need for a landing net.
Fly Sacrifice
What if the hook is lodged deep inside the mouth? This is when you need to decide if it is better to remove the hook or leave it in place. If the fly is deep, but not in the throat or close to the gills, try using a split-tube or pigtail hook remover. A 2007 study of Australian bream suggests that survival is increased if hooks are removed when they are deep, but not located in the throat or gills. If the fly doesn’t pop out with a couple of quick tries, it’s time to cut the tippet.
If the fly is in the throat or close to the gills, just snip the tippet close to the fly and let the fish go. This may sound like bad advice, but research suggests otherwise. One study found that 44 percent of deep-hooked fish (bluegills) died within 10 days of hook removal, as compared with only 12.5 percent where the hook was left in place. A study of bonefish found no increase in mortality when hooks were left in place. Sacrifice the fly and save the fish.
To repeat George Santayana’s well-worn phrase, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” If we don’t give a XXXX about conservation, many of the fisheries we love may go the same way as the anadromous fish runs of yesteryear. Effective C&R tools and techniques are important if we want to avoid such a depressing future.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
We tend to look at catch-and-release angling as a way to save fish we care about, but that perspective is too narrow. Ecosystems are incredibly complex, and changes in the abundance of species (plant or animal) can have totally unexpected effects. To quote from a 2009 paper in Applied Ecology, “Population control through harvest has the potential to reduce the abundance of nuisance and invasive species. However, demographic structure and density-dependent processes can confound removal efforts and lead to undesirable consequences, such as overcompensation (an increase in abundance in response to harvest) and instability (population cycling or chaos).” To put that in plain English, well-intentioned efforts to save fisheries can have unanticipated consequences.
Two examples of how poorly we understand the role of organisms in ecosystems are the reintroduction of gray wolves into Yellowstone and the removal of feral cats from Macquarie Island in the South Pacific.
In Yellowstone, the re-introduction of wolves caused deer to avoid the valleys, which had been heavily overgrazed. With the deer gone, the valleys rapidly reforested, which directly and indirectly changed the hydrology of the rivers. Erosion and meandering were reduced, while pools and riffles increased, all of which quickly benefited the trout.
On Macquarie Island, introduced feral cats were decimating the population of blue petrels, a seabird that lays its eggs in a burrow. To save the petrels, authorities launched a cat eradication program. Unfortunately, with the cats removed, the island’s non-native rabbit population bred out of control. The rabbits removed most of the native vegetation on the slopes where the petrels nested. A combination of massively increased erosion and the establishment of non-native plants eliminated large areas of petrel nesting habitat.
What has this got to do with C&R, you may well ask. California’s list of threatened and endangered fish includes suckers and pikeminnows. Fly fishers occasionally hook these fish while pursuing trout or steelhead. Some folks kill and discard these fish because they believe doing so will help trout and steelhead by reducing egg depredation. Despite the fact this is illegal, well-meaning anglers assume it is OK because the approach has been used by biologists for similar species in a number of waters.
The problem is that most anglers aren’t fisheries biologists, and their actions, however well-intentioned, have the potential to do very real damage. Suckers and pikeminnows are native species that coevolved with salmon, steelhead, and trout over millions of years. While they do indeed consume the eggs of steelhead and salmon, they fill countless other important roles in the ecosystem. The survival and abundance of these fish may be vital to the long-term survival of steelhead, salmon, and trout in ways we do not currently understand. Those who cull suckers or pikeminnows may end up dooming the very species of fish they care about. If you are serious about protecting fisheries, use effective C&R techniques and tools with every native species of fish you catch.
— Robert Ketley
