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Fly-in Outpost Fishing Camps Canada
A fish lifted for a picture will likely attempt to jump from your grasp! When lifting a fish use both hands, lift horizontally and over the water. Fish that jump from your hands and fall into the bottom of your boat, instead of falling in the water, are unlikely to survive for long if released. The protective slim covering of fish protects them from infection. When slime is removed by rough handling or from a fall, or from using dry hands, the fish is unlikely to survive if released even thought it looks healthy and is able to swim away with vigor. The thoughtful and informed fisherman today uses barbless hooks. A barbless hook protects the fish as they are much easier to remove and only do a small fraction of the damage a barbed hook will do in the mouth of a fish. When a barbless hook is set after a strike, a fish is not likely to shake it out or spit it out if you keep your line tensioned. The barbs on your hooks can often be removed with side cutters. Better still, go to your tackle shop and purchase new barbless hooks and attach them to your lures. Fly-in Outpost Fishing Camps Canada |
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| When a fish is caught, limit the time you play the fish. Exhausting your fish before netting it will mean that it is less likely to survive if released. A released fish needs to have some strength left to survive. It must have enough energy to re-oxygenate its own blood. An exhausted fish my swim away only to die a few minutes later, out of sight and out of mind. The longer you keep a fish out of water, the more strength it needs to re-oxygenate its blood when released. You can't go without oxygen for a minute or longer and either can a fish! Limit the time you keep a fish out of water to a minute or less to insure its safety.
Dispatching a fish that is to be kept in a timely manner is the best way and the humane way to deal with your catch. Two or three sharp blows with a weighted, blunt instrument, striking the fish between and slightly behind the eyes is the best way to dispatch a fish. Any twelve to twenty four inch hardwood will work. A length of one inch galvanized pipe will word. The broken handle of a paddle, cut to length will work. After you arrive at your camp, take a walk in the bush and find a dried hardwood branch that is about one inch or more in diameter and cut it to size with a camp saw. Leaving a fish out of the water, to expire by suffocation is not humane. Leaving a fish on a stringer will often cause it to die slowly by suffocation as well. Some day your photographs are going to tell some other fisherman how conscientious you are or are not! Taking photos of your fish is often the most common way of damaging a fish that is to be returned to the water. In the excitement we forget to take care. We must put fish handling rules first when taking photographs. Hold your fish horizontally at the water's surface to remove hooks and to take a photograph.
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