[Chiz]

Basically i was out fishing on Sunday....

I hooked into a small Rainbow, about 3lbs and i had some difficulty getting the hook out. I managed in the end though and carefully cradled the fish until it was ready to swim off. It swam off about 10 foot then just flipped on it's side and lay at the bottom of the water. It must have stayed there for a good 20 minutes before thankfully recovering and swiming away. I hear you should be wary if there's blood when unhooking a fish, but i've not had that problem yet.

Now i always de-barb my hooks and use this T shape thing to remove the hook as carefully as possible, but when things go wrong, what's the best thing to do? Tell the fishery? Ignore it? pay for it? what exactly?

I thought i'd ask as i felt quite bad for that wee little fish and felt quite guilty about it.

Ta!

[Sandy Nelson]

Chiz

if the fish isn't bleeding, then what you experienced
is quite normal, what's stresses a fish is when you start poking it while it lies on the bottom
if it is dying it will tend to float, not sink to the bottom.
However should it be bleeding from it's gills then please put it out of it's misery
and take it home. They do taste good and if you have to pay , then so be it. Just don't be
one of the wankers who try to hide fish they have unwittingly killed
just avoid paying a couple of quid Not fair to anyone.

Sandy

[Rob Brownfield]

Sandy,
Interesting about your feelings regarding bleeding gills. Over the years I have had a few fish that have been bleeding from the gills and I have always returned them. Some of those fish have been caught again by myself or others (talking Pike and Carp here of course as they are easily identifiable) with no apparant ill effects.

I have also caught Pike that have obviously been badly damaged by numpties that have had gill rakers actually hanging out of the gill plate and appeared to be feeding and growing. One particular fish from Skene went on for a good 5 or 6 years with badly damaged gills.

Very recently I caught a Rainbow of about 2 pounds that also had one of the gill rakers hanging from it gill plate. It must have been damaged a while as it showed good signs of healing and the fish was lively and well fed.

Of course, if a fish is very badly damaged I would also say take it for the table, but I do believe Trout are much hardier than we think. There are still people out there who insist that any returned fish is a dead fish after all