Deep hooked fish & Surgery

[fishboy]

Danny,
I have heard this discussed back and forth a million times. I was once fishing with Will Kirpatrick on Sam Rayburn and He always carried a pair of heavy duty extended wire cutters so he could snip the hook in half and release the fish as unharmed as possible. Will is a guide on Rayburn and is very outspoken on the idea of catch and release and to being as careful as possible not to handle the fish anymore than nessary in order to increase the chances of the fishes survival. He is convinced that the excess handling of the fish while trying all the other remedies to a gut hooked fish do much more damage than just reaching in, cutting the hook in half and letting the fish go. Will has done a lot of research on this subject and is on the fishing conservation board in the state of Texas and is considered an expert on the subject. So, that is what I do now too. I have saved many fish that I am sure I would have killed (as I did in the past) by trying to remove the hook.
Steve

Happy Fishin'
Leave your Mark...Not a Stain!

[stoner]

On fish that are keeper size I like to push the line down thru the gill then with my finger I'll pull the line till the hook eye is thru the gill then push the hook out using the shank.
This is not too time consuming and seems to be of little or no stress to the fish. Obviously it is easery the bigger the fish and the smaller the hook. Try this the next time you deep hook a fish it's worked well for me.
Stoner.

[W_anderson]

i Always Cut the hook and put the fish in the livewell and put that blue stuff in there that helps them. I DOnt KNow What It is Called