Killed My First Fish Yesterday. Am I Really Better Off Leaving The Hook In?

[BassAssassin726]

Yesterday me and my buddy has a great day at the quarry lake. WE caught 5 fish each in a few hours, all between 1.5-3 pounds. My buddy for some reason ALWAYS hooks fish deep. We use VMC offset shank worm hooks 2/0 to 3/0. I never hook em deep, alwasy in the side of the mouth. I guess he just has a delayed reaction to hooksets or something. Anyways he hooked one deep and we spent a little too much time trying to get it out and the fish died. Am i really better off leaving a 3/0 hook right in its throat? Theyre alwasy hooked right before the hole of their gullet. The really fleshy part. I told him maybe he should try barbless hooks, those barbs in soft flesh make it impossible to get out. Tried flattening it out before pulling it out but it wasnt working. IS leaving that hook right there in the way of its throat a death sentence? Cause being out of water for 5 minutes and yanking and pulling a hook out of its throat certainly was. I dont have this problem, i rarely hook em deep. Any advice? Barbless hooks? Leave the hook in? Thankfully it was only a 1 pounder and that lake is full of em so no biggie.

[kylek]

http://www.bassresource.com/bass-fishing-forums/topic/12981-how-do-i-remove-a-hook-a-bass-has-swallowed/page__st__15

Check out this thread to see how to remove a deep hook.

[J Francho]

ALWAYS remove the hook. All it will do is make it difficult or impossible for the fish to eat. It won't rust out, there's no magic stomach juice that dissolves it, so you have to remove it. Use the link above to get the hook out quickly. More often than not, it's the time out of the water that kills the fish, not the dehooking. If the fish dies, take it home and eat it.

[Loop_Dad]

Maybe your friend's set up is not sensitive enough for him to detect the bite fast, like stretchy line (mono)? I don't know.

[Goose52]

The single most VALUABLE technique that I have learned on this site has nothing to do with catching fish - it is the hook removal process illustrated in the thread referenced by kylek. I have never left a hook in a bass since learning this technique. As J Francho said above, I have lost a few fish - but usually not because I have injured the fish by removing the hook, but by keeping the fish out of the water too long. AND, all of the fish that I have lost have been <12" fish where you just don't have much room to work in their mouth and it takes some time to get something like a 3/0 EWG turned around. On larger fish, it really is a great method and the hook just sorta pops out.

Twice, I've been able to use this method to remove a hook that someone else left in the fish ...

["Lunker Hunter"]

Maybe I am doing it wrong but I take the hook out of the gill point first, then rotate and bring the rest though the throat/gill and out. Of course I cut the line first. Does anyone else do it this way?

[J Francho]

Sometimes. Whatever works the fastest.

[Catch N Release]

I turn them out threw the gil plate with pliers.But i caught a bass a few years ago with what looked like a stick with slime on it hanging out its butt.i grabbed my pliers and got it out the bass,turns out it was a 2/0 g-lock hook.Not sure if the bass would have passed it the rest of the way,but it was heathy as any other fish i released,and sure he was happy he saw me that day.

[Mike D from Lunkerville]

the above technique works every time... you friend also might want to start wacky rigging with circle hooks... it will almost always lip hook a fish.

[Bass Dude]

If I can, I sometimes cut the hook off at the bend. It will still leave the barb and a bit of the hook in the fish, but it won't have that huge hook left in its mouth.

[J Francho]

If you can cut it off at the bend, why not try to push the point back through and cut that off, and remove the hook altogether? I've done that a couple times.

[Glenn]

Sometimes with a really deep gut hooked fish, you'll injure the stomach of the fish during the fight, so much so that it's lethal, because you're essentially winding him in by his innards. In those cases, even after hook removal, the fish won't survive. He's done before he even gets in the boat.

But my point is - always remove the hook via the method above. At least then you've done your best to increase his chance of survival. But even then, you'll still lose a few gut-hooked fish.

[Dinky]

For the last 8 years I have been fishing for small mouth bass at a place in Canada that requires fishermen to mash down the barbs on their hooks when fishing for small mouth.

I can honestly say that in 99.99% of the time the barb is not needed in order to set the hook nor to land the fish. Many more often a fish throws a crank bait--where the barbs don't need to be flattened.

Now I know most of you will think this is crazy, but if I am not fishing for food, I see no reason for the barb. In fact, my belief is that the ONLY reason a barb exists at all is to hold live bait on a hook.

Without the barb on the hook I can remove a hook that is deeply imbedded without ripping the flesh of the fish and more often than not without drawing blood.

FWIW

Dinky