floaters and hooking mortality revealed

This post is not rocket science. Most of the people hanging out here are thoughtful, experienced anglers, or at least people with open minds looking to learn. Unfortunately that isn’t the same overall demographic to be found on Mille Lacs.

The DNR has done detailed hooking mortality studies on Mille Lacs (complete with deep holding pens to count the number of deaths and survivors over a period of days) and their results showed more fish survived than what was previously believed. I always thought, “of course” but still couldn’t figure out why I saw the numbers of floaters every year.

Sunday was an eye opening experience for me. It was sobering to see how many boats used horrible catch and release methods. I am not normally one to pay much attention to other boats. I might take note of the occasional dip net, and even watch to see if it is a big fish, but that is about all the attention I show towards others out there. I am usually too busy trying to stay on a spot, avoid another boat, etc. etc. For some reason, I spent more time watching others on Sunday. I saw some ugly catch and release routines and some crazy lindy rig fishing.

It all started when we noticed a boat dip netting a fish as we were moting against the wind to set up another controlled drifting run. We motored past them, set up the drift farther down wind, and started fishing. After a few moments – probably at least 5 or more minutes, I happened to glance back at the same boat. THE FISH STILL WASN’T BACK IN THE WATER! They were still taking pictures of it. As the walleye was gasping, it flopped to the floor from the guy’s hands held about 5 feet in the air. As he stomped around to pick it up, he finally got a hold of it… and… you guessed it: more pictures! By this time, they were nearing the 10 minute mark, at least. The fish had NO chance. They finally “released” it and surprise surprise… it just floated. They took turns for a couple minutes holding it by the tail, but it stayed belly up. I’m sure they thought to themselves, “well you win some and you lose some.”

This really got me going, so I started to pay closer attention to other boats. I saw the following several times… guys standing up to set the hook on a lindy rig. I was amazed at how long they were letting the fish take the hook. With light biting walleyes, I will sometimes let the fish take the hook longer. But this was crazy… my LONGEST ‘let them take the bait’ time frames would only measure between 1/3 and 1/4 the time these guys were letting them have the hook. I swear, the fish may have had time to swim to shore to spawn again in the time it took them to set the hook. Then, for good measure, it would be concluded with the most violent hook sets I have seen. The rod tip would go to the water, and then jerked all the way back over their head like they were setting the hook on a halibut in the Gulf of Alaska. The good news is guys mostly miss fish on these bass-master wild hook sets. The bad news is if the hook has gone in the gut, you can count on that fish floating within a few hours after it is released. I guess I just haven’t taken the time to notice this stuff much in the past but I was shocked at how often I saw it repeated when I actually paid attention. If I had only seen it a couple times, it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. The problem was I saw it over and over.

I always scoffed at hooking mortality figures. I’ve only gut hooked a couple walleyes all year and I cut the line on both of them. Almost every one has been hooked in the side of the mouth, or at worst, deep but still on the roof of the mouth (not in the gut). Now, I guess I can understand better the big deal made over hooking mortality. People should have to have a license to lindy rig or take a class. Well, I’m joking about that but it is frustrating to watch.

More and more people should begin to use circle hooks. They are designed to not allow hooksets like you mentioned as well as the fish being caught in the corner of the mouth! I know you might lose more fish with circle hooks, but with the amount of bigger fish in mille lacs in my opinion its ok.

My .02 cents worth!

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More and more people should begin to use circle hooks. They are designed to not allow hooksets like you mentioned as well as the fish being caught in the corner of the mouth! I know you might lose more fish with circle hooks, but with the amount of bigger fish in mille lacs in my opinion its ok.

My .02 cents worth!

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A big thumbs up on the circle hooks. I have used No.2 octopus hooks for walleyes for years. This year I seemed to be missing way too-many hook sets so I tried using Gammagatsu #2 Wide Gap circle hooks and my hook set rate went way up. I love these hooks for walleye live bait rigs such as the 3-way DBQ rig I often fish. 8 out of 10 hook-ups are in the corner of the mouth with the other 2 out of 10 usually being in the roof of the mouth.

It is surprizing how many fisherpersons dont use common sence during thier outtings
I have witnessed the same tatics and it discusses me to watch these people.

My catfishing experience using circle hooks is you CANNOT set the hook with circle hooks rather reel up the slack and a slow 10 o’clock lift of the rod tip will help get almost 100% hookup as said in the corner of the mouth. As mentioned you will want to use a little larger hook size than you normally would. Amazing how good they work and just a snap getting the hook out and a quick picture to avoid the scenario in the earlier post.

We saw the same thing on Sat on the Agate Needle. Guys were lindy rigging and giving line like it was opening weekend. I couldnt believe it. The fish were snapping hard, no reason to open the bail. We saw two floaters from the same boat. They kept going back to the same fish trying to revive them but it was useless.

We saw multiple 28+ inch floaters this past week. Typical for this time of year. But I cant recall seeing that many big fish in a short period of time.

Really it is all about the water temp. Cold water and the dufusses have to really try to hurt them. Warm water and there is a very small margin for error.
I have cleaned enough fish off the beach this year, thats for sure. The eagles are starting to get selective.

good points made……why keep taking photos of 24-27 inch fish? when you’re catching them a multible of times! I switched to taking a group shot of the days catch rather than twenty pics of over fish……..get the hook out and release the fish back asap. Heck I will even lower the net back in the water and release the fish if I notice that the hook has come out on its own! why handle the fish at all.

Is it common place to count to 10 and then set the hook while lindy rigging? I vary rarely lindy rig and had heard this a few years back during a tournament on mille lacs. Would you change this up according to how the fish are bitting.

How long do you let the fish take it while corking?

Ask yourself this. When your jigging or pitching and a fish thumps your line, do you open the bail and feed the line? Probably not. Same concept with Lindy rigging and slip bobber fishing. When lindy rigs first hit the market, they were tied with #6 and #2 hooks. They were used primary for fishing with minnows. Today we use #8 hooks and leeches like on mille lacs for instance. But the opening of the bail hasnt changed. I stopped opening my bail two years ago and my catch rate has increased and the gut hooking gone down.

Many of the old school launch captains started the “count to 10 ” thing for slip bobber fishing. Again, imagine your vertical jigging with a 1/32 oz jig and it gets whacked, your probably not going to open the bail. Soon as I see the bobber go down, the rod tip goes up..

I get this question alot on guide trips. My response is that fish dont grab your bait with thier front fins, they grab it with thier mouth. If your using the proper size bait, jig, hooks etc. Theres no reason to free bail line.

How long do you let the fish take it while corking?

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I bobber fish alot and as soon as the bobber dips I get the slack out ASAP and set the hook, almost everyone of the fish we have been catching have the hook in the lip or roof of the mouth, very very few get the hook all the way down. If they do, we cut the line and get them back in the water ASAP.

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good points made……why keep taking photos of 24-27 inch fish? when you’re catching them a multible of times! I switched to taking a group shot of the days catch rather than twenty pics of over fish……..get the hook out and release the fish back asap. Heck I will even lower the net back in the water and release the fish if I notice that the hook has come out on its own! why handle the fish at all.

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Perfect, why not say you fished, pretend you caught a bunch, and then pretend it was carefully released unharmed.

Good Info on that post Derek.

Mike, Rigging for me it depends on how the bite is going. Some days I do wait for the 10 count and barely hook some fish. Other days I just give the fish the rod tip and once the line gets tight sweep my hook forward(Maybe a count of 1 or 2). Other days it might be a 4-5 count, depends on the day and how they are biting. I will usualy start longer (8-10 count) and try to shorten the time up each bite until I start missing fish then go back to wher ei was still getting them. Somedays I get the ol tap and the fish is ripping line off faster then the spool can give it. Those days, I just shut the bail and hold on.

Now on the days I’m waiting for the 10 count and barley hooking fish in the mouth is it beacause they are barely biting or have they had that whole bait in their mouth the whole time and my hook does not find meat until the end??? I guess I do not know. I go what works for me on that day.

I have many times I have had a bite gaven the fish a 5-10 count, did not feel them on my rod go another 10-20 feet drifting feel them bite again give them (feed them line) another 5-10 count, not feel them on my rod again and continue drifting, feel them hit it agian, go ahead and give them another 10-20 count, feel them and set the hook, only to have them barley hooked right in the corner or in the snout. Kind of hard to explain, but if you have fished with me, probably have seen me do it. Now I have couple theorys to that (what may be happening) and I think all of them could be right depending on the fish/instance. The first being that fish either was not very aggressive or felt me before I let go and spit it, 10 seconds later would watch the bait swim off (drift off) and would be intrigued enough to hit agian and so on or 2)a new fish came and took it or 3)the fish would swim/roam with the boat, hence never being able to feel him until he slowed down. In these cases, I have hardly ever experienced a gut hooked fish. If I do experience this at anytime, I just cut the line and get the fish back into the water.

I agree 100% Lip!! It all depends on the day and the bite. Last week on Cass I was doing the same thing with Crawlers. I had to do it. Give line for 10 seconds,,,nothing,,, 10 more,,feel her and set to find 1″ of crawler left. Changed feeding method to 10 seconds, 10 more, and 10 more with perfect top-shelf placement. Other days, or using a leech would be completely different.

However, I do have a questions with the hookset itself. Why would it matter if you give em the steel or set it like a reeling in 10 year old?? When you set the hook am I wrong in saying that all you’re doing is imbedding the hook? The hook placement has already been determined by how long you gave time for the fish to swallow. Maybe I’m missing something here but I see no relation to the hookset itself adding to the problem. If the fish has the hook deep, the weight of that fish will typically embed the hook on it’s own either way.

When lindy rigging, I always feed line, after a tap. Like said above, give em a little, try to feel if it is there, if not, more line. That’s how I was taught, not that I can’t learn something new, but how do others do it ? I keep the bail open in fact, and the line running over my left index finger, when I feel a tap, could be a fish, could be a foreign object, I release the line for about 10 seconds, then take the slack out and check for the fish. I do this with circle hooks, and regular hooks. Works for me.

big g

When lindy rigging you don’t always get a “tap” from the fish. Sometimes you can see your rod tip start to load and the pressure on your finger increase. With nightcrawlers I usually give the fish a little more time to eat the bait than with minnows or leeches. There really isn’t a right or wrong amount of time to let the fish take the bait when you’re riggin.

Once you get the technique down it’s easy to de-hook gut hooked fish. Just go through the gill with a long hemostats. As long as you can see some of the hook you can get it out quickly 100% of the time.