Guidelines for Catch-and-Release

Below are the guidelines for CnR fishing from FWRI ... FWRI

There are a lot of ways to increase survival rates and every angler should try to employ the "tips" depending on the situation. Photographing fish for tournaments or photo-trophy presents it's own set of circumstances. These guidelines leave a lot of room for each angler's interpretation in the gray areas. I hope these guidelines help our members enjoy the fishing experience.



Guidelines for Catch-and-Release
The most important actions an angler can take to ensure a successful release are to hook and land the fish as quickly as possible, leave the fish in the water while removing the hook, and release the fish quickly.

These are additional tips to improve survival rates:


Decide beforehand which fish are to be kept and immediately release all others.
Do not engage in a prolonged debate over whether or not to release the fish after the fish has been landed. Never place fish in your live well intending to release them later if you catch a larger one. Once you make a decision to keep a fish, stick with it. The fish you release from your live well has a decreased chance of surviving.


Avoid the use of gaffs and never remove large fish such as tarpon from the water.
Large fish can injure themselves and the crew and should therefore be treated with respect. Take a photograph of the fish in the water and turn it loose.


If the hook is difficult to remove by hand, use long-nosed pliers or a hook-removal tool.
Do not tear additional tissue in removing the hook—back it through the original wound. If this fails, cut the leader and pull the hook through the injury. Cut the leader close to the hook when releasing large jewfish, tarpon, sharks, and other fishes that are gut hooked that you do not plan to keep. Do not lift a gut-hooked fish out of the water by the leader; this can increase the damage.


Try fishing with barbless hooks or crimp and remove the barb.
Catch rates using barbed and barbless hooks are not significantly different. The advantages of using barbless hooks are that they are easier to remove and they cause less physical damage to the fish.


Wet your hands or gloves before handling the fish.
Do not injure the eyes or gills. Placing the fish on a wet towel will help keep the slime that protects it in place. To keep the fish still, place it on its back or cover its eyes with a wet towel. Control the fish at all times! If you drop the fish, the chances of it dying increase.


If your fish is in good shape, put it back into the water headfirst.
If it doesn't swim or is lethargic or erratic, some "resuscitation" may be needed until the fish can swim off on its own. Revive exhausted but otherwise healthy fish by first placing one hand under the tail and holding the bottom lip with the other. If the fish is in fair to good shape, merely hold it headfirst into the current. If it is severely lethargic, depress the bottom lip to cause the jaw to gape and gently move the fish forward. Moving the fish in an erratic back and forth motion will just induce more stress. At the first sign of the fish attempting to swim away—let it go. Prolonged attempts at resuscitation will be stressful to the fish.


Large pelagic species such as sharks and tarpon should be brought alongside the boat within 20 minutes of being hooked.
If you are consistently landing exhausted fish that require extensive efforts at resuscitation, you should consider using heavier tackle.

Practice and share these techniques! Teach your children and inexperienced anglers these few simple procedures to help ensure abundant fish populations for the future.

Never get out of the boat.

Good post... I also sometimes remove trebles from my lures and replace with single drops. I just started doing this and haven't gotten every lure changed yet. One South Texas guide, who has been doing this a lot longer than I, has stated that it hasnt' hurt his catch ratio at all.

Good read and good to know y'all are conservationist minded too....We gotta protect it for the young ones!

Good Post FH, notice it does not mention handling fsh with a lip gripper...

Bend your barbs down and its much easier to remove the hooks, even from yourself.

SW, Live to Fish, Have Yak & Tackle will travel ... >,)))~> ~~~~

OK ....F/H I'll be watching you.
I just bought a gaff for offshore,now your telling me I can't use it.After watching that vid of the guy trying to land that cobia ,there is no way I could have landed that king I lost.It may not have been that heavy but it had lots of teef
I have a lip grip and only used it a few times,until I saw it rip holes in the bottom lip of every fish.Only if I have a hard time reviving a fish I will tie it to my yak and paddle a bit until I see some spunk in it

I can't believe it when I see someone using one on snook ,which are the easiest fish to grab by the bottom lip.Now I only use it on barracudas I plan on using for bait.

I've been looking for a venting tool for offshore ,but have not found one yet.

I don't really know if these are the "definitive" guidelines but I posted them for a couple of reasons. The main reason being we should all try to minimize the mayhem.

The second reason is to point out that these are just that ..."guidelines". There are a wide variety of people that hit these forums ranging from poachers to extreme tree huggers. Thankfully, most of our members fall somewhere in the middle.

If you go back to the original post and hit the link you can see some data on survival rates for fish. Some of it is in controlled circumstances and some not. The studies, in my opinion are not that comprehensive or at least not enough to definitively give a percentage in all areas. The guidelines tell you not take the fish out of the water for the best chance of survival then tell you to wrap it in a wet towel. They are, I think purposely vague. In other words, they don't mandate any particular behaviour because it would impossible to do so without saying "this is the law".

I remember fishing with krash long ago and he saw me use a lip gripper on a Snook. He called me a big p@ssy and told me to stick my hand in it's mouth. I don't use lip grippers on Snook now although I've seen other guidelines that tell you to use a lip gripper. I've also recently been told not to hang a fish vertically for a photo and yet that same person uses a lip gripper on Snook. This person was not aware of the circumstances at that point in time.

Anyway my second point is that we should live and let live. Each to his own. "Let he who is without stones live in a glass house" .. or something like that.

Peace.

diminished

Never get out of the boat.