How badly do you have to throat hook a bass to seriously injure or kill it?

[Ohioguy25]

I deep hooked a smallie tonight and it took me a few minutes to dislodge it. It wasn’t gut hooked, but deeper than usual. It was piercing this small white appendage, like a little uvula looking nub at the back of the throat.

 

Not much blood at all, but when I put him back in the water it sat motionless, right side up, for a good 5-10 minutes. I’m pretty sure it swam off, I felt awful though. I really hope I didn’t kill it.

[Catt]

I'm more concerned with damage to the gills than deep hooked unless it's on the throat. 

 

Familiarize yourself with thread on how to remove deep hooked fish. Keep the proper tools handy, avoid damaging the gills.

[Ohioguy25]

11 minutes ago, Catt said:

I'm more concerned with damage to the gills than deep hooked unless it's on the throat. 

 

Familiarize yourself with thread on how to remove deep hooked fish. Keep the proper tools handy, avoid damaging the gills.

What do you mean unless it’s on the throat?

[Catt]

1 minute ago, Ohioguy25 said:

What do you mean unless it’s on the throat?

 

 

 

[Spankey]

Hence the reason if you’re gonna bass fish you have to have a set of decent long nose pliers, long reach hemostat and a good set of diagonal cutters. Not junk you buy out of the tool bin at Rite-Aide drug store. The majority of the hooks I use for worms and soft plastics will rot away. The decent set of diagonal will let you cut them off real short. Make a quick decision as to how you want to go about it and get the fish back in the water. These type of hookups will run higher with live bait usage. Just the way that it is. I’d cut the hook as short as possible rather than be Dr. Ben Casey the oral surgeon I’m not. 

[Ohioguy25]

1 hour ago, Catt said:

 

 

 

Yeah it was back in that area, not sure it was quite in the throat I think it was one of the two white nodules above it. Is that enough to kill it? I got the hook out with little blood but like I said he looked stunned and sat motionless for several minutes.

[Catt]

IDK!

 

If it stayed up right,  lost little blood & swam off, those are good signs.

[the reel ess]

I try to save as many as I can by the methods mentioned above. But if I'm certain I've killed a fish I try to give it to someone who's keeping them, if they're around. It happens. If it dies, some other creature will profit from its loss of life. 

[Deleted account]

It sounds like it will be ok, and was getting over being left out too long. When I have to work on getting a hook out, I'll either do it with the fish in the water, or place it back in every so often. Often deep or badly hooked fish are killed by the action of taking the hook out ripping tissue. As mentioned the gills and guts are bad, as is the tongue for some reason. Something I see ying rarely is a fish hooked through the top of the mouth that is dead or dying as soon as landed, I'm assuming it hit the brain or something else vital up there, but don't know for sure. Another thing that works well sometimes if a larger fish gets 2 trebles in the gill is to cut the hooks and pull it out the gill.

[Bird]

As mentioned, carry a pair of quality cutters. 

I can have a fish back in the water fairly quickly but sometimes have to go behind the gill....snip.

[TnRiver46]

Sometimes you can cut the line instead of killing the fish . They can poop them out, spit them out, rust them out, etc 

[NHBull]

Birds have to eat too!

 

 

[Skunkmaster-k]

Nah he was playing possum 

[RDB]

I’ve always found fish mortality post catch to be an interesting subject. Hook location, hook removal, hook/bait type, etc.  And then add in things like water temp, delay between strike and hook set, stress of the fight, care in the live well, to fizz or not to fizz...so many variables.

[Team9nine]

According to studies, there is a good chance that fish ended up dying. I sat in on a fishery presentation this spring by one of the leading researchers in this area, and he said the best thing to do is to leave the hook in and cut the line. The suggestions above about cutting the hook off with wire cutters is fine, too, as long as you don't try and remove the hook first. The picture above about going in through the gills he labeled as "misleading," and is not good in practice.

 

A couple things he cited included research suggesting that about 60% of hooks get expelled by the fish within 10 days. Another was that a study of deep hooked smallmouth bass was terminated after the first 16 of 17 fish tested died when they tried removing hooks with disgorgers. 

[TnRiver46]

10 minutes ago, Team9nine said:

According to studies, there is a good chance that fish ended up dying. I sat in on a fishery presentation this spring by one of the leading researchers in this area, and he said the best thing to do is to leave the hook in and cut the line. The suggestions above about cutting the hook off with wire cutters is fine, too, as long as you don't try and remove the hook first. The picture above about going in through the gills he labeled as "misleading," and is not good in practice.

 

A couple things he cited included research suggesting that about 60% of hooks get expelled by the fish within 10 days. Another was that a study of deep hooked smallmouth bass was terminated after the first 16 of 17 fish tested died when they tried removing hooks with disgorgers. 

I’ve always been taught that as well but people insist on digging hooks out 

 

thanks for tangible info as always 

[geo g]

It’s not so much the hooking that does the damage, it’s more the removal and whether it’s done properly.  I have deep hook bass many times and removed the hooks without damage.  Be a line watcher and get an early bite detection, this will go a long way in preventing it from happening in the first place.  Study the on line info on hook removal.  There are good videos available.

[Ohioguy25]

2 hours ago, Team9nine said:

According to studies, there is a good chance that fish ended up dying. I sat in on a fishery presentation this spring by one of the leading researchers in this area, and he said the best thing to do is to leave the hook in and cut the line. The suggestions above about cutting the hook off with wire cutters is fine, too, as long as you don't try and remove the hook first. The picture above about going in through the gills he labeled as "misleading," and is not good in practice.

 

A couple things he cited included research suggesting that about 60% of hooks get expelled by the fish within 10 days. Another was that a study of deep hooked smallmouth bass was terminated after the first 16 of 17 fish tested died when they tried removing hooks with disgorgers. 

d**n that is depressing, pretty sure I’ve been catching him for a while

[Fishlegs]

2 hours ago, Team9nine said:

According to studies, there is a good chance that fish ended up dying. I sat in on a fishery presentation this spring by one of the leading researchers in this area, and he said the best thing to do is to leave the hook in and cut the line. The suggestions above about cutting the hook off with wire cutters is fine, too, as long as you don't try and remove the hook first. The picture above about going in through the gills he labeled as "misleading," and is not good in practice.

 

A couple things he cited included research suggesting that about 60% of hooks get expelled by the fish within 10 days. Another was that a study of deep hooked smallmouth bass was terminated after the first 16 of 17 fish tested died when they tried removing hooks with disgorgers. 

That is good info. Did they give any thoughts on why they think the fish died after removing the hooks? It seems like they would occasionally get cut in that area when swallowing prey that doesn't want to cooperate with being eaten. I wonder if that causes them to die, or if it has more to do with the metal hooks?

[TnRiver46]

11 minutes ago, Fishlegs said:

That is good info. Did they give any thoughts on why they think the fish died after removing the hooks? It seems like they would occasionally get cut in that area when swallowing prey that doesn't want to cooperate with being eaten. I wonder if that causes them to die, or if it has more to do with the metal hooks?

It’s the act of removal if I had to guess. Torquing their throat inside out and what not 

[Team9nine]

17 minutes ago, Fishlegs said:

That is good info. Did they give any thoughts on why they think the fish died after removing the hooks? It seems like they would occasionally get cut in that area when swallowing prey that doesn't want to cooperate with being eaten. I wonder if that causes them to die, or if it has more to do with the metal hooks?

 

Two possibilities were given;

 

The first is that you have both a barb and a hook point sitting on the other side of the membrane/esophogus that houses a lot of vital organs, and that twisting, turning, and just moving that hook around trying to get it free risks either of those points puncturing or lacerating a vital organ that would lead to death. In those cases, you would never see the bleeding, and death wouldn't be immediate, as the bass would swim away, only to die a short time later (<24 hrs) after bleeding out or infection.

 

 

The second possibility was the old fence post/wooden stake analogy, whereby someone impaled by such an object can be perfectly fine and coherent as long as that object stays in place. It actually serves as a wedge that helps stop/block the bleeding, and that only when you remove the object does the blood have a chance to pour out of the wound and you bleed out and die.

 

In the first study mentioned above, the approx. rate of death was lower than the smallmouth study, but still in the 35-45% range. In either case, not removing the hook and just cutting the line led to better outcomes, with mortalities in the 10-15% range after 10 days.

[TnRiver46]

^much better wording.  @Fishlegs, I have seen dead largemouth that accidentally tried to swallow a bluegill tail first so yes prey fish can kill them sometimes. But if they swallow any fish head first the fins fold down 

[RDB]

3 hours ago, Team9nine said:

According to studies, there is a good chance that fish ended up dying. I sat in on a fishery presentation this spring by one of the leading researchers in this area, and he said the best thing to do is to leave the hook in and cut the line. The suggestions above about cutting the hook off with wire cutters is fine, too, as long as you don't try and remove the hook first. The picture above about going in through the gills he labeled as "misleading," and is not good in practice.

 

A couple things he cited included research suggesting that about 60% of hooks get expelled by the fish within 10 days. Another was that a study of deep hooked smallmouth bass was terminated after the first 16 of 17 fish tested died when they tried removing hooks with disgorgers. 

Unfortunately, there is research on both sides.  I think survival after hook removal is influenced by skill and handling.  I personally remove the vast majority of hooks by flipping through the gills except in rare situations where it will take considerable effort.  If you are afraid of damaging the gills (low likelihood), you can cut the line with about a foot of tag and fish the line through the gills to flip.  Some say the hook will rust or dissolve but there are a number of studies showing 75%+ retention after 4 months, even in salt water.  At the end of the day, skill and care matter.

[Fishlegs]

Thanks for the detailed response @Team9nine. That makes a lot of sense. It's hard to imagine leaving a hook in is a good idea. I guess it's not a "feel good" thing. We all want to give the fish the best chance to survive when we release it.

 

I only remember throat hooking a couple of fish last year. I did a terrible job of removing the hook on one, and I felt bad watching it suffer. I know it died. On the other one the hook seemed to come out clean, and it swam away immediately. I'll never know whether it lived or not, but I'm hopeful that it did.

[Mike L]

When I or anyone I’m with gut hook a fish as illustrated in @Catt response, I’ll try to work it out being careful not to bring it’s throat up past the point where there is resistance. 

 

If it’s firmly implanted I will just leave it but cut the shank flush. 
Then I will check through the gills. 
If I can see any of the hook and can’t get it out with causing the least amount of damage I’ll cut that also. 

 

I figure it’ll have a greater chance of survival with 2 smaller pieces than just one large piece. 


 

 

 

 

Mike