Handling Bass for Catch, Photo, and Release (CPR)

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…

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