most fish, if handled well and released quickly suffer no ill effects other than the snide remarks of thier schoolmates as they try to tell them about their alien encounter:
Seriously, Catch & Release fishing has been shown to be very safe and effective for the fish… but the rules are also clear, even if you “know” the fish will not survive, if it is against regs to keep it, you’d better release it. The big key is minimizing the time out of the water for the fish and good handling practices.
That was actually my point. Yeah, it’s silly to kill for the sake of killing, but it isn’t always possible to only catch fish that you’re allowed to keep. Sometimes the prohibited ones think that your bait looks good.
Some thoughts:
You could have told your fishing buddy: “Look, if you wanted pictures you should have brought your camera - it’s both illegal and kinda bush-league to make the fish pay for your oversight.”
You could have offered to hold the fish, then have “accidently” released it. When your friend returned, you could have apologized profusely for your carelessness and offered to testify to his friends as to the immense size of the fish he’d caught (and how difficult it is to keep hold of such a monster for 10 minutes).
If you use barbless hooks you land fewer fish, but the time it takes to remove a hook and release a fish is usually much reduced. It’s easy to convert a barbed to a barbless hook (by crushing the barb).
This isn’t the conventional wisdom though is it? I also thought the stomach acid helped dissolve the hooks very quickly for gut hooked fish.
I always was told cut the line and leave the hook was always the best solution for the fish’s safety. I’ve been googling for a technique to unhook the fish or anyone who advocates this to no avail. I’m very interested if you are right but I would like more info if I’m going to start doing this myself.
There’s alot of back and forth on it, especially (it seems) the state sites all seem to say ‘leave the hook’, but much of the more recent stuff I’ve read suggests the opposite, and IMHO, if I can return the fish to the water with the ‘least’ possible harm, all the better. I think the ‘conventional’ wisdom is what is haunting us here, and perhaps with the ‘brass’ hooks even somewhat true - but the hooks today (stainless steel, corrosion resistant, black nickle, whathaveyou) are much more resistant to the rusting process.
Here is one article that describes the technique, and here is an excellent article by Ralph Manns on the subject, and here is the in-fisherman article with a good illustration on the technique.
Thanks!