Hook Mortality

Perhaps this information, taken right form a recent fly fishing magazine article from Paul Downing entitled The Logic of Limits, will shed some light on why new proposals on area trout streams want to eliminate bait usage.

“There have been three major studies of hook mortality for trout in recent years, A 1992 survey by Taylor and White (“A Meta-analysis of hooking mortality of nonanadromous trout” from North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 12:760-767) reported the following average catch-and-release hook mortality by angling method:

Bait, barbed hooks: 33.5%
Bait, barbless hooks: 8.4%
Flies and lures, barbed hooks: 4.8%
Flies and lures, barbless hooks: 2.6%

“The major cause of hook mortality is damage to the gills and other vital organs from deep hooking,”

“A 1996 study by Schisler and Bergeson (“Postrelease Hooking Mortality of Rainbow caught on Scented Artificial Bait,” from the North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 16:570-578) monitored 1473 fish caught in stocked ponds by flies, actively fished artificial scented baits, and passively fished artificial scented baits. The artificial bait used for the study was the Power Egg This study did not include worm fishing or artificial lures. The average hook mortalities in this studey were:

Artificial bait, fished passively: 32.1%
Artificial bait, fished actively: 21.6%
Fly-caught fish 3.9%

Just some food for thought and perhaps some insight into the rationale for making streams catch and release with no bait allowed.

Good informaiton but my own experience is that using spinners is the worst way to go. Why? When I used to bait fish years ago and I deep hooked a fish in the stomach I cut the line and prayed. When I have spin fished a lot of the times the spinner hook was in the gills. Like too many times! So when I read about the spin fisherman who sells lures and tells about all the fish he catches and releases I just shake my head. I tried his spinners a few years ago and they are really great at catching. It is the releasing I personally have a problem with. So what do I do? I fly fish and release the trout with a forceps in the water. I still guess that I kill some as your studies show. I try not to but I have a real problem with people who catch 50 or more trout a day releasing them all with the mortality rate that the studies show. I am guessing that whatever method we use we will kill some fish on release. So, I do not begrudge a fisherman for taking home his limit no matter what method he uses. I have personally kept 4 trout over the past 9 years for eating. I used to keep my limit of five each time that I fished. I guess I have grown in the sport. Thanks for your inputs. JJ By the way, in an effort to cut down on mortality I cut off one of the spinner hooks and it seemed to help. I never seemed to catch many fish on single hook spinners. This was when I bait fished 75 percent of the time, fly fished 28 percent of the time and spinner fished the rest. No more spinners for me and no more bait for me except to work on a wall boarder that has a limited time left anyway.

Mackeral, as someone who spinner fishes alot I haven’t had the same results as you. There are very few times when I’ve expierienced fish caught in the gills. I usually throw pretty big spinners though. Were you using smaller spinners when you were having problems with hooking the gills?

I have had a problem somewhat with my Rapalas (number 9) hooking gills on occasion though. I still can’t figure out how they can inhale the rapala that deep before I stick him.

Birdman, To tell you the truth about using spinners that go down deep and hook the gills. I really can’t say for sure about the size and deep hooks. I used to only use small spinners but now that you ask about it in the last four years I have switched to big spinners. Since I have not used them that much my memory might be faulty and you might have something about the use of big spinners not hooking deep. Its just that I don’t spin fish much. The more I think about it you may be right on. I do know that I was surprised how small trout will hit a big spinner. Good call on your part about hook mortality. JJ