When releasing fish, why do you place them back into the net? They often float upside down and it damages and splits their tail fin. It sure seems like you’re overhandling them. Can you explain this to me? Your fish are also out of the water a long time.
Posted on September 16th, 2016Hi Kurt, thanks for your comments. We usually use a soft-mesh landing net that has a smaller mesh which is coated with soft-plastic and when wet, is very slippery to avoid minimize outer body fish damage. If we need to revive a fish in the water when fishing out of a higher bow of a boat like the G3 that I use to do TV shows. We try and gently place fish in the net and hold them so that water passes into their mouth and through their gills. When they get their energy back, right themselves and swim off on their own they are released.
Sometimes we hold fish out of the water for hook removal or to talk about some of their characteristics and then revive them until they are ready to be released. We try and handle each fish we plan on releasing carfully and make sure it’s revived before releasing it.
