C&R Mortality

[briansII]

I saw this posted on another forum I read. I thought it had very good information on catch and release mortality on wild steelhead, but that it could easily crossover to wild trout. What's posted is a tad long for the ADD types like me, but I read it all, and thought it hit the mark well.

I found the followups to the article to be common on fishing forums. There are always those who question the validity of the studies. I just thought the article was well done, and hit many important points about our C&R practices, and the realities of it.

http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/ ... p?t=776711

briansII

[fancyboy]

Wow! Perhaps a little less fish * is in order. How long does it take to snap a pic or two?

[tomsakai]

Very good article. Maybe us C&R fishermen aren't as innocent as we think (as far as impacting the fishery).

[Bakoguy]

It's a good review of the proper fundamentals of catch and release. Agreed. Particularly the part about being out of the water or having his slime removed by over handling.
However, I would argue that the statistics in many of these studies don't seem to match the typical catch and release stream. Take a famous tailwater such as the San Juan. If this study was absolutely true you would see dead fish everywhere. Instead you see no significant fish kill in relation to the hundreds and hundreds of fish caught daily. Same with the Green River and others.
I believe that the fish can be harmed while being released, particularly if he's layed for a photo shoot or kept out of the water as this study suggested.
Nonetheless, if he's not released then the kill rate goes to 100%, I think. I'm math challenged at times.
Only an opinion. I'm not a fish biologist. At times I'm not even a good fly fisherman.

[fly addict]

Good read and I think it is important to release fish as quick as possible without handling them. If you think how many times a fish could be caught in a C&R stream over a year and every time that fish is handled and removed from the water, a little slim could be removed from their skin. The slim is a protective membrane which is the first line of defense from water borne infection. We need to do as little harm as possible to insure the fish is able to live and play another day. For me that means pinching the barbs down on all my hooks all the time. And using the Ketchum Release tool to remove the hook from the fish without touching them or lifting them out of the water. I also don’t carry a camera and take photos of the fish. I feel it is much more important to insure the fish survive their encounter with me, and I will do everything I can so that happens.

Mark

[borntoflyfish]

a little slim could be removed from their skin. The slim is a protective membrane which is the first line of defense from water borne infection.

There is so many times I walk down the river I fish. And see so many fish with this skin infection your talking about.
One more thing you have to look at is these fish nets that use the nylon for the net. If you got one just feel how much slim is striped off the fish after you let it go. I had one and got rid of it after I seen how it was striping the slim off them. Now I'm almost to the point of bending down the barbs on the hooks.
It's such a wonderful sport. And this is how I have grown over the years. I have a grate deal of respect for the fish.

[209er]

As for the SanJuan, haven't fished it since the early 90s. Saw a few dead fish but many live ones had white ick all over them from ill handling. Easy to spot with white beacon. Bad etiquette rampant as were the fish, reminds me of an eastern sierra tailwater from the 90s. 209er

[DubL HauL]

As for the SanJuan, haven't fished it since the early 90s. Saw a few dead fish but many live ones had white ick all over them from ill handling. Easy to spot with white beacon. Bad etiquette rampant as were the fish, reminds me of an eastern sierra tailwater from the 90s. 209er

I noticed the same thing at the San Juan - 2008, it was a major disappointment.

Andy

[NorcalBob]

Sorry, but that piece is written with a very biased point of view. Any time I hear "science", followed by "preaching", I cringe. There are some good points in it, especially in regards to air exposure, and why you should minimize it. And something not mentioned in the piece, is every single F&G Dept accounts for C&R mortality in their management process and models, and use somewhere about 6%. And 6% is a whole lot better than 100%, from the catch & keep crowd!

[lucfish]

This is kind of a touchy subject. I'm inclined to agree with Norcal Bob. There are excellent points made in the article like Bob said but I've always believed there a 5-10% mortality in c/r which has already been pointed out. I'm far from a expert on anything remotely related to this subject but here is an example of what happened to me 10 or so years ago on a eastern Sierra tailwater. Now this was a brown, is survival much different for a brown, I don't know. Anyway hooked this larger specimen and fought it carefully because of the light tippet, maybe 10 minutes or a little less. finally netted it and was pretty excited. Was by myself and wanted a picture so I went downstream a little and found somebody to take one. Now the fish was still in the net but when walking it was out of the water a fair amount of time, I couldn't tell you for sure but maybe a minute or a little less. Found this guy he takes the picture and I release the fish 300 or so feet from where I first hooked him. I'm feeling little guilty about keeping the fish out of the water as long as I did and made a mental note to be a little more conscious of that in the future. Well two weeks later I'm back there and guess what, I catch the same fish in the exact spot where I hooked him the first time. The marking on this trout were very distinctive and there was no doubt it was the same fish. This time I release him right away. Two weeks later, yep I catch him again. Same spot. Fought good all three times, tippet was stronger the next two times and the fight was a lot shorter though. From what I could see this fish did not show any signs of stress with no visible wounds from my handling. Maybe everything was right for this fish water temps, air temps, I don't know. I'm not trying to make excuses for any wrong handling with this story, (and I do make it a point to release fish as efficiently as possible) just trying to point out that we just don't know sometimes. I think there is always going to be some mortality and we can try to minimize it with good sound c/r practices but if we can't accept some mortality (flies do get swallowed from time to time, some fish have a lactic acid build-up that will inhibit survival no matter what we do, things of that nature etc.) then we can't fish.

[NorcalBob]

There are so many variables affecting C&R mortality it's very difficult to make generalities. Water temp is a huge factor, probably more so than playing time. I will not fish rainbow water above 70 degree's, and am reluctant to do so above 65 degrees. Also keep in mind that in the study referenced, they "exhausted" the fish much more so than a normal angler would. Most fly anglers I know don't play their fish to total exhaustion, so a direct comparison with the study is not completely valid.

[Papasequoia]

There's a Mexican proverb I always think of when this topic comes up - Ni tanto que queme al santo, ni tan poco que no lo alumbre. It comes from the Catholic tradition of lighting votive candles in front of statues or paintings of Christ, the Virgin Mary or a favorite saint who you want to hear your prayers. Literally it means “not so much that you burn the saint, nor so little that no light is cast upon him.” What it really means though is that a middle ground is usually the best path in most things in life, and you hear this proverb often in all kinds of situations.

In the C&R debate there are two logical extremes. The first is that if one really wants to do all they can to protect the fish, they will stop fishing. The other is the feeling that you need to keep every fish you catch every time you go fishing and stack them up in your freezer like cordwood (to be tossed in the trash periodically to make room for more). Many of us, me included, came to C&R from the latter position. Now we are all trying to figure out where on the spectrum of the many possible middle positions we fall. Some possibilities:

Barbless: All the time; some of the time depending on the type of fish; only when forced to by law; never; etc.

Pictures: Every single fish caught; only the big fish; only the first fish; only the special fish; no fish ever; only in the net; only if someone else can snap a quick pic as you lift the fish for one second from the net; only in the water as you reach down to unhook it; etc.

Handling: don’t know or care and use dry hands; handle but with wet hands; don’t ever handle under any conditions; handle some but not all; place fish on dry ground for a picture; don’t even let the fish touch a net; only use certain types of nets; etc.

Fighting fish: No concerns – catch fish, fight fish and let fish go; varying degrees of concern for rod weight used in fighting the type/size of fish you are targeting; varying degrees of concern for the tippet size used in fighting the type/size of fish you are targeting; length of time you will fight a fish before allowing it to break off (if any); temperature of the water in which you will fish (if any); etc.

Those are just some of the main points, there are certainly others. I think that for most of us, our positions are usually in flux. For me, as long as someone is in the middle of the extremes, -Ni tanto que queme al santo, ni tan poco que no lo alumbre, then that is a heck of a good start. These kinds of articles and debates on forums are helpful periodically so that people become more educated on the issues, but the important thing is to not become so fanatical that our own personal stance is the one and only correct one and by insisting on it fervently we force others into one of the extremes. I think that a lot of people who might be thinking about moving towards C&R are often turned off by that fervor and that is part of what continues to get fly fishers labeled as elitists. Not everyone, especially those new to fly fishing and/or catch and release, are as educated as some of us on the subject and they aren’t going to be convinced if they get slammed hard for their first posts where they might have put a fish on the ground, or taken a picture of every 20 cookie-cutter rainbows they caught on their last outing. Another helpful saying is that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Personally I am comfortable with the position that I currently hold. Wet hands, are of course a given, but I now take pictures of many, many fewer fish than I used to. I try to take a picture of my first fish, any fish that are especially colorful and large, and usually a few representative fish of what I catch during an outing. For example, if I am catching 15-20 browns from the Big Reedy that are all in the 9-13” range, I might take a picture of 3-4 of them. Thus, many of my fish are now released with either zero to very minimal handling, most aren’t even netted. However, I am far from eliminating taking pictures from what I do on a fishing trip. If we did that, there would be a heck of a lot of fly fishing magazines and photographers who would be out of work and leave a lot of us who like looking at those pictures distraught. Nevertheless, we are still only talking about the position that I have decided to take (for now). If someone else wants to take a picture of every fish they catch, or not take any pictures at all, then that is there right and long as they are practicing C&R (and refining their own positions over the months and years) then that’s good enough for me.

I’ve just realized that I started writing this post at halftime between the Bears and the Jets, and not only has that game ended, but it is now the end of the first quarter of the Patriots-Jets game. Didn’t mean for it to get so long – all I really wanted to say was that the debate is important and informative one to have from time to time, but we just have to remember not to burn the saint.

Now it’s time to finish this up and watch the BOSTON Patriots win this game.

[Rob909]

I’ve just realized that I started writing this post at halftime between the Bears and the Jets

Geez Jon......I know the game was bad, but at least I give the Seahawks credit for showing up


Rob

[Papasequoia]

I’ve just realized that I started writing this post at halftime between the Bears and the Jets

Geez Jon......I know the game was bad, but at least I give the Seahawks credit for showing up

Yeah, that was a poor typo, I was feeling bad for Seattle since I was rooting for them too. Now I feel worse with my boyhood team, the Patriots, actually whooped up on by the Jets. I guess I'll have to drown my sorrows with beer (rather than celebrate with beer - kind of a win/win actually )