Releasing the Biggun'

[Freakwater]

Looking toward Buoy 10 and Tillamook, I'm thinking if I ever caught a monster, it might be in my best interest to release it. Now, I've been fishing for salmon for over ten years and the biggest 'chrome' fish I've ever caught was 23# (damn tules)! I always wanted to best that and thought I'd like to keep my first 30#, 40#, and 50# class fish. Not so sure now. My question is: If you hook a fish and soon decide you want to release it, what is the best technique as far as survival of the fish?..... Put the screws to it and get it to the boat A.S.A.P. while risking a break off? Don't know about you, but I can't help but think if a fish breaks off with yards of line and a big hook in it's mouth that survival odds are not that good. I just don't buy that hooks will rust out in a couple days like I've heard over and over. Or would it be best to tire the fish out and ensure that it got to the boat to release it?

Freakwater

[rob allen]

If you are potentially going to release a fish the planning for that begins before you even put a line in the water. here are some rules that though I am sure some will debate are good things to do for CnR fishing.

Nearly all catch and release mortality is caused by hook injuries leading to loss of blood. Most hook injuries occur because a fish is hooked deep. With that in mind these are my suggestions.

1. avoid using bait, fish tend to take it deeper, that is why for trout every fish caught on bait has to be added to the daily limit even if you release it.. Salmon have large enough mouths to take any bait or lure deep but especially bait.

2 always use ONE, single point barbless hook.. A single hook hooks and holds salmon as good or better than trebels and they are esier to remove from a fish you intend to release and have nearly as hook of a hook to land ratio as barbed trebels if you know what you are doing, you have been salmon fishing for 10 years so no problems there.

3. any fish you plan to release should never be removed from the water, best thing to do is to bring a fish into shallow water unhook it and release it. However that's not always an option, if you are going to net a fish out of a boat, put on your PFD, net the fish and bring it to the transom unhook it in the net in the water and release it.

4 as you mentioned, always use heavy enough line to land the fish quickly and make sure your line is in good condition to avoid losing a lot of it on a fish. I personally dont believe that many fish are fought to exhaustion except when the fish are unhealthy as when they are close to spawning or when water temps are high ( above 66) and dissolved oxeygen are low. In the fall thoes aren't issues.

again nearly all CnR mortality comes from hook related injuries, do what you can to minimize thoes and accidentally killing a fish will be an extreme rareity.. maybe once every 20 years...