The Lucky Tailor

[Spanker]

I snuck down to the wier on the LCR and was throwing a bit of chicken around about 20 meters down stream. I could see schools of bream, mullet and drummer, all doing their thing.

About 3rd cast and a cheeky little blighter latches on for a quick fight on light gear. To my surprise, up comes a small tailor. Chuckling about what a greedy little fish he is, a notce something red just sticking out of his side.

Whaa? The point of a red hook is poking out of the side of him from way down in his gut. I got the pliers and worked it out - a whole flipping big red suicide he had swallowed and it had pieced the stomach and was working it's way out. So after removing that hook, I removed my hook and threw the blighter back.

That's one lucky fish

Spanker

[SUBLiME]

hhahah yer that IS one lucky fish... caught twice and escaped to swim another day both times! lol

[Brad Duffell]

ive heard if you leave the hooks in their survival chances are much greater.. perhaps this is why you often hear of people catching fish with hooks still in em

[SUBLiME]

I dont know about that... If you leave the hooks in them they could corrode and further infect the wound which then leads to an earlier death for the fish... The salt in the water helps disinfect the wound, but I'm not sure on any further facts such as the survival rate or the quality of life for the fish...

shant.

[Davy]

i always thought it was better to leave hooks in, rather than try and yank the hook out of its gut etc.

learnt this from rexie!

Cheers

Davy

[Spanker]

i always thought it was better to leave hooks in, rather than try and yank the hook out of its gut etc.

learnt this from rexie!

Cheers

Davy

Hi Davy,

Yeah mate I know what you mean, but fair dinkum a great dirty pointy bit was stick out from between his ribs - who knows what that was goign to do to him. The eye of the hook took a little bit of wiggling, other than that is just slid out.

If the hook was in his throat or mouth I would leave it there rather than rip flesh apart.

Anyone know how fast (or slow) stainless steel hooks take to rust in sea water?

Where is old RH these days anyway?

Spanker

[Tony Soprano]

Spanker- I'm pretty sure stainless steel hooks don't rust, being submerged in salt water they would deteriorate a small amount after a while but nothing like regular steel hooks...

You never know, I might run into you fishing down there one day, I live just up the road...

Edited May 31, 2007 by Tony Soprano

[huntman]

I was at the national marine science centre a few weeks ago and they had a lot of catch and release info there, and apparently a study done on whiting (I think it was) suggested that if you cut the line off and leave the hook to rust away, and if you don't handle the fish, and if you keep it out of water for a very minimal amount of time, survival rates are excellent, in the 90's.

As you do less of those things, the rate goes down. So yes, cutting the line is the best thing for the fish if it is gut hooked, according to the information I saw there. They were really pushing circle hooks as well which is interesting.

[Spanker]

I am surpised there is not more research data available about this. If I knew a stainless hook would hang around for months and a mild steel hook would rust out in weeks, I would likely use mild steel hooks when bait fishing.

Years ago I was at one of the Aquariums (Syndey or Manly, forget which) and noticed one of the sharks had the rusted shank of a hook sticking out from the side of his mouth.