# New hooking report



## REG (Oct 25, 2002)

Saw this on the MFFSA FB page and thought it is interesting enough to post here:

https://www.saltstrong.com/articles/fishing-lure-left-in-a-fishs-mouth/


----------



## JimP (Feb 8, 2002)

REG said:


> Saw this on the MFFSA FB page and thought it is interesting enough to post here:
> 
> https://www.saltstrong.com/articles/fishing-lure-left-in-a-fishs-mouth/


Continuing down the page is a very interesting video on a new "FG" knot for tying braid to mono. Very nice looking knot, narrow in diameter compared to a swivel connection and very strong they say.


----------



## kzoofisher (Mar 6, 2011)

Interesting. As someone in the comments section points out, how do crank baits which have mass and leverage for the fish to work with, compare to a bare hook or a jig? I've caught bass that cough up tube jigs and other fish with hooks still in their lips, probably most of us have. Hope someone can do follow up studies with different hook types and different fish. Overall it's good news that fish with large bony mouths are pretty successful at freeing themselves.


----------



## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

If you read the study you posted in another thread, you will see that mortality rates in trout doing exactly what this article says; you will see a mere 4.5% mortality rate.


----------



## kzoofisher (Mar 6, 2011)

Any chance you can be more specific? Lots of threads with lots of links around here.


----------



## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

I believe it was the inland trout study written by Zorn, Tonello, et al. If you read lines 780 or there about, you'll see a study that says that.


----------



## kzoofisher (Mar 6, 2011)

Just a touch of cherry picking there. Also, as has been discussed here several times, "active" baitfishing is a definition that can't be enforced. Because of that we are stuck with the 25% average mortality rate for bait fishing. The PDF doesn't want to copy very well but here is the entire passage starting on line 766.

Summarizing results from over twenty studies on trout and salmon, Wydoski (1977) found that hooking mortality averaged 25% for anglers using live bait, 6% for those using spinners and other artificial lures, and 4% for anglers fishing with artificial flies. Of these studies, only two involved wild trout caught on artificial lures or flies in a stream (Shetter and Allison 1955; 1958), and both were conducted in Michigan. The overall percent hooking mortality of stream trout using flies, artificial lures, and worms from the Shetter and Allison studies were as follows: brook trout (flies- 2.0%, lures- 2.6%, worms- 42.4%); brown trout (flies- 0.0%, lures- 1.5%, worms- 20.3%); and rainbow trout (flies- 5.8%, lures- 6.3%, worms- 35.4%). A more recent study in Maryland (Pavol and Klotz 1996) used similar procedures to Shetter and Allison. They produced similar results for flies and lures with brown trout (and flies with brook trout), but found 8.7% hooking mortality for brook trout using lures. Nuhfer and Alexander (1992) reported 8.3% hooking mortality for trophy wild brook trout caught on treble-hooked lures in three Michigan lakes. Schill (1996) noted that hooking mortality from bait angling can be substantially reduced if bait anglers “actively” fished bait (without a slack line) and cut the line on fish that were deeply hooked, leaving the hook in the fish. Mortality after 72 hours for 199 wild brook trout and brown trout caught in a Wisconsin stream by active baitfishing was 4.5% (DuBois and Kuklinski 782 2004).


----------



## Benzie Rover (Mar 17, 2008)

toto said:


> I believe it was the inland trout study written by Zorn, Tonello, et al. If you read lines 780 or there about, you'll see a study that says that.


Toto - You have a very interesting take on that information. Obviously, slack line fishing will result in more hooks being swallowed and therefor gut hooking. But as Kzoo mentions, there is no practical way to 'enforce' people to be better fisherman. How many times have you been steelie fishing and seen the dude's line next to you with a huge bow in it? Or how many times have you watched someone else's bobber go down well before they realized what's up. Slack line is not just putting a rod in a Y branch, or surf holder for that matter, and walking away. And no matter how hard you try to avoid it, it still happens a lot, to all of us. That 'tap' you feel is the fish inhaling the bait. The faster you set, the better your chances of pulling the hook back out to the front of the jaw, roof of mouth or corner of mouth, but make no mistake - that fish inhaled your bait. In fact with steelhead and trout, 95% of what you first feel is actually the fish shaking it's head for the first time to try and shake the hook. So regardless of how good you think you are, we have to manage for the lowest common denominator. And there are a lot more of 'them' than 'us'.

Secondly - The DuBois and Kuklinski study results are pretty much worthless IMO. A lot of fish will survive really bad injuries much longer than 72 hours, but most will die before they get to spawn again. This is particularly true with gut hooked fish that are released. I don't have the study at my finger tips, but the Wisconsin DNR did a muskie mortality study comparing live bait (suckers) vs lures. 100% of gut hooked muskies died within 18 months, even though many of them lived a few months or so after getting gut hooked, but their condition factor went downhill steadily. A few even lived a year or so, but, they found those fish with lots of infections, could not digest properly and ultimately, it killed them all. Of course those were big ole musky sized trebles, not a #6 Aberdeen, but then again, a brookie stomach is pretty small in comparison as well. People feel good about letting fish swim away with a gut hook, but reality is that most of those fish will suffer and most will succumb to it eventually. True, some won't. But make no mistake, most will.

People that refuse to admit that bait kills more fish than lures simply don't fish much or simply will not admit what they are obviously observing if they do. This does not stop me from using bait. I love to jig with minnows, soak tip-ups and I am as spawn crusted as anyone, but I am at least conscious of what is going on and the impact I have and I understand there are management measures that need to be taken to balance out these impacts.


----------



## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

Probably so on the slack line issue but IF one wants to find the study to prove a point, I'm sure it's out there someplace. Having said that, the NRC could easily make a rule to stop the hook and forked branch crowd, wouldn't stop all of it, but a step in the right direction. If you want to combine issues, not saying you do but follow my logic. Chumming was banned due one study that showed sodium sulfate was harmful to small fish, but we have studies that show that outlawing bait fishing isn't the holy grail as once thought. It appears there is the study I mentioned and also a study showing population numbers, at least on the Ausable, at previous historical numbers. Therefore it should stand that 1) the chumming ban should be reversed 2) flies only fishing eliminated as science says these conservation methods are not needed or 3) both regs should be reverséd.


----------



## kzoofisher (Mar 6, 2011)

toto said:


> IF one wants to find the study to prove a point, I'm sure it's out there someplace.


 No, there isn't and your claim that there is reflects a part of the attacks on science in general. You can claim the earth is flat and provide a *study* that shows it, but the study is BS and you haven't proven anything. Or a study can be an outlier and attempts to replicate it demonstrate a problem with random chance or methodology which is why the summary of 20+ studies above carries more significance. You can also misread a report and make an unsubstantiated claim based on that, which is what you have done here. The article REG linked is about leaving crank baits in pike. You extrapolate that to two sentences which are only tangentially related; one claiming that "active" fishing _can_ reduce mortality (by an unspecified amount) and another which claims a rate of 4.5% but without noting how many of those fish had hooks left in them. Attributing the 4.5% rate to both Schill and DuBois/Kuklinski is totally unwarranted and if you want to correlate all three studies you need to look them up and find the mortality rate for trout with hooks left in them as well as the mortality rate for the pike (not mentioned in the article).



toto said:


> also a study showing population numbers, at least on the Ausable, at previous historical numbers


 OK, I'll bite. Which historical numbers? From when the river was being heavily stocked? Before logging? And how does the recovery of a fishery mandate going back to practices that may have contributed to its decline? This is a very important question right now because it is at the heart of the discussion to allow commercial netting for walleye in Lake Huron.


----------



## vano397 (Sep 15, 2006)

I'll be a little tongue in cheek here, but are the non scientifically significant lower %'s of fish caught with fly over other artificials including chuck-n-duck???? cuz, I'd hope hook mortality on fish caught in the dorsal fin is pretty low! Might skew the results a little...

Anyhow, on a serious note, I suspect that a population study referred to that showed no decline could, maybe, be the report on the creel surveys from the flies only waters on the PM that were introduced right before they decided to extend the gear restricted area??? I do recall that showing absolutely no difference in either numbers or sizes of fish from pre restriction times to after 30+ however many years it's been. I'd agree that there is little difference between gear/bait/fly. Frankly the worst hooked trout I have seen are while nymphing, but that is true slack line...

It is undoubtedly true that if you use bait, and let them swallow it and gut hook a fish, it will die from the result. However there's also the whole unattended rod thing that we forget to mention in that story. Most of those are intended to die and go home with the angler anyhow. When people fish bait, whether spawn under a bobber, or suckers for muskies, if the right techniques are used, mortality is extremely low. The other half of the Wisconsin musky study (not necessarily by the same people at the same time, but in response to better techniques) shows that mortality of fish caught on quick strike rigs is as near to zero as it is with artificial lures, and fortunately the difference in rigs is enough that it is indeed enforceable. I think perhaps the biggest "problem" with bait fishing is actually the disdain for the technique and the neanderthals that ruin it for people trying to do it right. I also hate garbage and bait containers... but perhaps one step farther, that the people bait fishing are also the people that tend to have stringer mortality?!?!


----------



## toto (Feb 16, 2000)

I love you're secular progressive mentality there is ok you just my point exactly. The morality studies do include leaving a swallowed hook in place, I'll admit that part, but I suppose that one little study was sufficient to ban chummin, not that I chum, but it's significant in that one little study can change a rule in one case but not in another, which is another s-p maneuver. Thank you for showing us all that this really is about all about you and what you want, bravo.


----------



## Trout King (May 1, 2002)

Here is my thing; If I think a fish I hook is going to die from being gill/gut hooked I simply throw it in the creel as long as it is of size. If the fish is too small to be legally kept, I feel terrible about the impending death, but follow the law instead of my own feelings and toss it back in. At least something else should eat it if I can't.


----------



## vano397 (Sep 15, 2006)

toto said:


> I love you're secular progressive mentality there is ok you just my point exactly. The morality studies do include leaving a swallowed hook in place, I'll admit that part, but I suppose that one little study was sufficient to ban chummin, not that I chum, but it's significant in that one little study can change a rule in one case but not in another, which is another s-p maneuver. Thank you for showing us all that this really is about all about you and what you want, bravo.


I was in a bit of a cynical mood... but I'd agree too that it was one little study that changed chumming, and it was disproved and manufacturing was changed as a result, therefore nolonger relevant. The best thing that came out of it is a road map to getting what you want from the NRC. The hardest part of regulation in this state is that we do have many different prominent angler groups, and all must be taken into consideration in regulations. We are in the midst of musky regulation changes, and becoming (hopefully) more restrictive than any other state. Not because other areas need to be as restrictive as us, but because we have more angler groups and need to account for increased mortality. Same goes for gear restrictions on streams, it's not really the correct way to go to restrict how you catch fish, it has proven not effective. I would like the conversation change to MSL and bag limit changes in response to havest/mortality/angler pressure/etc. Though bag limits are not nearly as effective.


----------

