Willfully Destroyed My Best Lure To Save A Fish

[jason41987]

i was fishing today with my new favorite lure.. its a swim jig that is black with a green skirt and a grub with a bright green tail.. a small pike, a little over 12 inches engulfed it.. it went so deep in his mouth i couldnt get it out in one piece... i had to use pliers to peal off the skirt and grub to get a good grip on the hook.. once released i was luckily able to pass it through the gill flap and safely out of the fish.. i was fairly certain i was going to have to kill the fish to get it back which would have been unfortunate... but, i saved it by tearing up the lure

 

luckily.. i tie my lures to 12" long leaders with a loop tied on the end so i can quickly hook it onto a swivel, but once i finally got the hook free i was able to open the swivel clasp to pass it through the gill flap....

 

so, anyone else destroy their favorite lures to save a fish, or would you have preferred to rip it out even considering the fish was definitely too small to be worth keeping?

[cast_and_destroy]

I havent had to do that but I'd desrtoy my lure in a heartbeat to save a fish...

 

In my opinion you did the right thing man.

[gramps50]

Kudos

[clayton86]

I na bass sure a 12 pike I think you ment it says bike I'm gonna assume pike uhm no not gonna bother. I've had pike and pickerel take jigs and spinner baits deep like you stated. I usally whip out the needle nose pliers and hold the fish upside down and go in from the gill side not threw the mouth it's a lot easier you don't ruin lures. However pike ehhhh if the die they die I mean I won't purposely kill one but I don't get as upset at pike.

[29JMP29]

I na bass sure a 12 pike I think you ment it says bike I'm gonna assume pike uhm no not gonna bother. I've had pike and pickerel take jigs and spinner baits deep like you stated. I usally whip out the needle nose pliers and hold the fish upside down and go in from the gill side not threw the mouth it's a lot easier you don't ruin lures. However pike ehhhh if the die they die I mean I won't purposely kill one but I don't get as upset at pike.

 

I agree haha. the lakes I fish have a million 13-14 inch pike and whenever I hook one deep, I usually just get it out with needle nose. but i'm not gonna destroy a 10 dollar crankbait or a nice spinnerbait just to save a pike

[Bluebasser86]

Wouldn't have done it for a small pike, musky sure, but not a pike. Most lakes with pike have those hammer handles everywhere. Honestly I'd do what I could for a small bass but if one doesn't make it I don't get too bent out of shape. I don't ever keep any of the bass I catch so if one doesn't make it it's not the end of the world. I've ruined plastics that were still good to save a fish plenty of times and cut hooks off cranks though. 

[jason41987]

well, i only kill what i eat, and will always do my best to save something im not going to eat... so about 99% of my fishing is catch and release

[bmlum415]

For a bass then probably but anything else then prob not

[Loop_Dad]

I destroy my lures to save fish. But they are plastics, hooks and jigs, not very expensive anyhow. Today I cut a hook of a jig head, because this one had two steel wire weed guard which prohibited me to turn the hook enough to unhook.

[bigbill]

Save every fish. I don't like to kill any fish. I would save any fish at any cost. It's a life vs money, money means nothing.

I don't take fish home that much but maybe a few each year to feed my abandon kittens/cats that I take home and adopt.

[I.rar]

I had to cut some hooks off a mini fat rap to save a crappie when I was in Nc. Felt good to see him swim away.

[MrSwimJig]

I have done it to save bass and probably would for any fish if I couldn't safely get it removed by other means.

[jason41987]

i agree with bigbill totally... life vs a SMALL amount of money.. i mean realistically how much money are you losing when you damage a lure?.. $10 or less?, and how frequently do you need to do this? not frequently at all, especially in my case where this is the first time i had to do it, and it was only a weedless jig head and grub anyway, so more like $1 lost..... and maybe where you guys come from pike arent worth much, but here they get big.. very big and i regularly catch pike over 30".. in fact, bass here are so small since im up north, but the walleye and pike are so much bigger that i fish for them, not bass, and if i carelessly killed the little ones they wouldnt grow up to be big ones

[zwhiten12]

Well done

[rippin-lips]

It was a pike so I wouldn't of cared at all. Look at it as you were giving something a free meal if that helps you feel better.

[Bankbeater]

I usually fish plastics, so cutting a hook in half and removing both pieces is not going hurt my wallet.  On the other hand a lot of the local lakes I fish are over populated with dinks so it probably wouldn't hurt to thin them out a little.

[derekxec]

i dont have a problem destroying a lure to keep a fish alive...what if you had an accident or so and someone said nah my $10 tool is too expensive to break to save that persons life sorry

[jason41987]

now apparently people have been doing something in this area that makes me incredibly angry... catching fish they personally believe are "garbage" and then leaving them on shore in the grass.. its quite cruel to be honest, i cant stand people killing things for the sake of doing it.. for food, fine.. plus it stinks up the area and attracts a lot of unnecessary wildlife, scavengers, and insects.. the fish they seemed to have been doing this to are bowfins... in fact, the people here are so uneducated about the species they dont even know "bowfin" is the proper name for it

 

for that matter, i dont even see why it matters.. theyre not  keeping anything they catch, and bowfins put up a bigger fight than anything else in that lake so it seems stupid to let them die to what? increase the numbers of gamefish they dont even keep anyway?.. besides, bowfins are not invasive and as such have every right to populate a lake as any other fish

 

when i was fishing.. apparently the dickheads that were there just before me left one in the grass.. it jumped out behind me, barely alive... but i was able to get it into the water, get it some oxygen, and i was able to revive it so it could swim away

[deadadrift89]

Jason hats off to you. I do the same for any fish !!

[Lazz]

now apparently people have been doing something in this area that makes me incredibly angry... catching fish they personally believe are "garbage" and then leaving them on shore in the grass.. its quite cruel to be honest, i cant stand people killing things for the sake of doing it.. for food, fine.. plus it stinks up the area and attracts a lot of unnecessary wildlife, scavengers, and insects.. the fish they seemed to have been doing this to are bowfins... in fact, the people here are so uneducated about the species they dont even know "bowfin" is the proper name for it

 

for that matter, i dont even see why it matters.. theyre not  keeping anything they catch, and bowfins put up a bigger fight than anything else in that lake so it seems stupid to let them die to what? increase the numbers of gamefish they dont even keep anyway?.. besides, bowfins are not invasive and as such have every right to populate a lake as any other fish

 

when i was fishing.. apparently the dickheads that were there just before me left one in the grass.. it jumped out behind me, barely alive... but i was able to get it into the water, get it some oxygen, and i was able to revive it so it could swim away

whoowhoowhoow....now this is something Completely different. I would loose my **** if seen somebody doing this...pure ignorance.

but good for you bro, I woulda done the same.