Bleeding Fish

[OHIO]

Went out fishing tonight and had a heck of a time tryin to get them to bite.

Only caught one, but it was a solid 2.5-3 lber.

I was casting out past about 15 feet of algae that was hugging the bank.

Set the hook and all was well until she hit the vegetation.

Pulled in about 4 pounds of algae with her and when I went to lip her I noticed blood coming out of the gills.

Don't really know why. She was hooked kind of deep, but the hook came out easy.

What I would like to know, is do bass that bleed like this usually survive?

She was a decent one for this pond and it would suck to have it die.

Wasn't too much blood, but it went all the way to the tail.

[brushhoggin]

you hook her in the gut? supposedly a gut hooked fish's chance for survival is slim, even if they swim off right away.

[OHIO]

Nope, not gut hooked. It was hooked deep in the mouth, but she didn't swallow it at all.

It took all of about 10 seconds to get the hook out.

[clayton86]

She's probably fine a lot of guys here have said they notice they clot soon as they go back in and if u didn't gut hook it I'm sure she's fine. Iv hooked a good share like u discribed a lot were with 5/0 too there skull where the brain I would think would be bleeding all over and there never belly in the pond later in the week some are even caught later in the year

[grimlin]

Had the same thing happen to me last week.....Took out the hook quick and got it back in the water.It didn't even want to swim off. Finally it did then a minute later it went belly up.

It kinda sucked watching it swim down the river past me.

[slonezp]

If it's tongue hooked it's a goner.

[OHIO]

If it's tongue hooked it's a goner.

Don't think it was tongue hooked, but there was too much algae to get a good look.

I've heard they die immediately when tongue hooked.

[Oscar O.]

To be completely honest, you'll never really know but it sounds like that fish at least had a chance to survive its ordeal. The blood will clot at the injury, as previously stated, so you probably don't have to worry about it bleeding to death (I haven't heard about a fish version of Hemophilia).

[j.bruno]

I hooked one in the tongue a few weeks ago and it bleed bad, i threw him back immediately hope he made it.

[Shad_Master]

There is a blood vessle in the mouth and if you happen to hook that they bleed like crazy, but are usually okay if released fairly soon.

[hookingem]

If you haven't killed a fish or two you must not be catching alot of fish. seriously it's a nature of the beast and although we hate to see it happen its unavoidable.

[clayton86]

I hooked a 7lber last night on a rage shad and I hooked him bad I felt horible she is probably going to be blind in one eye. It took the hook threw the eye then back down threw its eye socket back into its mouth. So this 5/0gammy wide gap went up threw its eye then back in she wasn't getting away. It didn't bleed but its eye was all messed up. I hope she lives I'm sure it will it was a nice nice bass the pics turned out like poop it was 930pm

[Evan Lip Ripper]

On 7/18/2011 at 9:09 PM, grimlin said:

Had the same thing happen to me last week.....Took out the hook quick and got it back in the water.It didn't even want to swim off. Finally it did then a minute later it went belly up.

It kinda sucked watching it swim down the river past me.

How fast did it swim away?

[Evan Lip Ripper]

On 7/18/2011 at 9:21 PM, slonezp said:

If it's tongue hooked it's a goner.

Not always, last November I caught a bass with a hook in it's tongue and when I took it out, it didn't bleed a single speck.

[Doelman]

The key to bleeding fish is to get it in the water ASAP, fish blood clots in the water, not the air.  I've released fish that were bleeding and see them come back up a few minutes later, I've also released fish and never saw them again, just depends.