One of my favorite things about the kayak angling community is the
propensity for catch and release amongst its members. Catch and
release is a great practice for anglers to maintain fish populations
and encourage the growth of large bass. While there are scenarios in
which culling fish from a water body is beneficial, the increasing
pressures from the overall popularity of the sport combined with our
shrinking bodies of water, especially in Texas, catch and release is
more crucial than ever before.
Unlike bass boats, kayaks have no built in live wells to
conveniently hold and/or transport fish for the angler to release at
a later time. As such, kayak anglers typically perform catch, photo,
and release (CPR) to document their catch. While catching a fish,
taking a picture, and subsequently releasing the fish seems
straightforward enough, your handling of the fish has a direct impact
on the survival rate of the fish after you release it.
Removing the hook is often where the most damage is done to
the fish. For obvious reasons pulling sharp pointy objects with
barbs imbedded in a fish's mouth has some inherent dangers. You can
limit some of this danger before you ever land the fish. One way to
do this is to do your best to ensure the fish isn't swallowing the
bait before you set the hook. If the fish swallows the bait and you
crank him out of the water by a hook that is through his stomach
lining or throat you are going to do some damage. Often times,
especially when fishing with large plastics, you want to make sure
that the fish has the bait and hook in its mouth before you set the
hook. With practice you will learn how long is too long. Once you
have landed the fish, removing the hooks can be anywhere from very
easy to very difficult. When I am using baits equipped with treble
hooks I tend to net the fish to avoid harm to both myself and the
fish. I don't want my hand anywhere near a fishes mouth when that
fish gets to shaking its head with a big ole crankbait in there. If
you are unfortunate enough to get hooked while the bait is still in
the fish's mouth that all but guarantees that fish will be out of the
water longer than necessary, or healthy. More often than not when
the fish has eaten a treble hook bait it doesn't swallow the hooks,
like it can on a soft plastic, and the hooks are usually easy enough
to get out with a pair of good pliers. When using a worm hook I can
usually pop the hook out of the fish's mouth easily using pliers,
unless the fish has swallowed the hook. If the fish does swallow the
hook then usually what you see when you look down the fish's mouth is
the hook pierced through the throat with the point of the hook
pointing back towards the mouth. This can seem like an impossible
situation but there is actually a pretty simple method to removing
this hook without causing excessive damage to the fish. You can take
the eye of the hook and bend it towards the gill away from the hook
shank. This causes the hook to naturally rotate and turns the bend
of the hook towards you and the point of the hook so that it is
pointing towards the fish's throat. Sometimes you need to reach up
through the gills from the gill plate to grab the hook eye to fully
rotate it. Once the bend of the hook is pointing towards the mouth
you can reach in and grab the bend with your pliers or hands and the
hook will pull right out. When employing this method be very careful
to avoid damaging the gills. They do have a tendency to grab your
finger, making it difficult to remove your finger from the fish's
mouth. If you cut the gill, even slightly, it will result in a lot
of blood loss from the fish. If a hook is swallowed you should never
just yank the hook out. You will almost always cause enough damage
to kill the fish. The fish may not die right away but almost
certainly will after a short period of time. If you can't perform
the method above to remove the hook from a gut hooked fish it is just
better to cut the line and let the fish pass the hook. It won't be
pretty but it is
better
than death.
Visit
this
page for some helpful illustrations on the method of unhooking gut
hooked fish described above.
Avoid removal of the fish's slime layer. The layer of
slime that covers a fish is its first line of defense against
diseases, parasites, and bacteria. The absence of that protective
layer puts the fish at greater risk of disease and infection, and
compromises the fish's ability to recover from wounds. The actions
you can take to prevent removing the slime layer start before the
fish is even in the boat, particularly if you use a net. Typically
your net will get wet when you dip your net in the water to net the
fish, but since your net is often the first thing the fish comes into
contact with, ensuring it is wet will help prevent slime removal. If
you are measuring your fish, dip your measuring board into the water
prior to putting the fish on the board. Again the wet board
minimizes the amount of slime removed from the fish. The biggest
offender and often the most difficult to prevent, especially if you
have a particularly uncooperative fish, is letting the fish lay on
the floor of your boat or the ground. Try to maintain a hold on the
fish by the jaw and preferably in the water as much as possible.
Which leads us to our next item…
.jpg)
Limit the fish's time out of water. A good rule of thumb
is to keep the fish out of the water no longer than you can hold your
breath. That at times can be a very tall order, particularly if you
are fishing competitively and need to get a length or weight
measurement on the fish. I like using fish grippers to minimize the
time I hold fish out of water because, as opposed to a stringer, you
don't need to poke any holes in the fish or run a line through the
gills. With grippers you can tie off to the boat, attach the
grippers to the fish's lips, and set them in the water while you get
all of your stuff together e.g. - camera, measuring board, scale,
tournament identifier, etc.). Once you have everything ready you can
pull the fish out of the water and remove the grippers to take your
measurements. If I am getting a weight and a length I usually put
the fish back in the water for a few seconds between the two.
DO NOT JACK THE JAW! I put this one in all caps for a
reason; because either people don't realize this can break the fishes
jaw, or they think it looks cool in pictures. Jacking the fish's
jaw, especially on a big fish, is a sure way to break their jaw.
They may seem healthy when you release them but they likely wont be
able to feed over the coming days and will die. Jacking a fishes jaw
happens when you grab the fish by the lower lip and then hold the
fish up horizontally with no support under the belly. This puts all
the weight of the fish directly on the lower jaw of the fish. When
you hold a fish horizontally, place your hand under the belly of the
fish to support the weight.
Release the fish when it is ready. This one sounds sort of
silly. The fish is likely ready to be released long before it
reaches the boat right? What I mean by this is after handling the
fish for several minutes don't just throw it back in the water.
Especially if it is a big fish or if it was a long fight. Often the
fish is tired out and just throwing it back in the water can cause it
to go belly up or struggle, making it vulnerable to predators. There
are a few methods I employ to make sure a fish is ready to be
released. First, I just lay the fish in the water naturally holding
it by the lower jaw. More often than not that is all the motivation
the fish needs to swim away; however, sometimes the fish will try to
go belly up or just won't have the energy to leave. When this
happens what I typically do is move the fish's head side to side
gently while holding the bottom jaw. This gets a little bit of
oxygen flowing and often can snap the fish into gear. On the most
tired fish even this isn't enough sometimes. If this is the case I
perform the same action but instead of grabbing the fish by the jaw I
grab it by the tail and gently shake the tail from side to side. If
all of these tactics fail then the last thing I do is again grab the
fish by the lower jaw and move the fish forwards and backwards
through the water forcing water over the gills. Sometimes you will
need to perform all of these actions over the course of 5 or even 10
minutes to revive the fish.
Ensuring a healthy catch and release of a fish can often take some
extra time and attention to detail but in the end it will result in a
healthier community with bigger bass for years to come. Links to
some of the products I really like for employing CPR are listed
below.
Fish Grippers
Hawg Trough Measuring Board
Leverage Landing Net
Some photos courtesy of Black-Schmidt Photography
