Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Anyone who has been fishing in the bay much this season, probably knows that after its rather slow start way back in the spring and early summer, the flounder action has recently picked up dramatically. It’s been a long-long time since so many flounder have been landed in the bay! Of course, flounder fishermen are also finding that quantity does not always go along with quality, and a lot of the flounder being taken are a bit shy of the 16-inch size limit. Therefore, in the process of getting a keeper, anglers should be prepared to weed through their share of throwbacks as well.
Naturally, even catch-and-release fishing is fun, and catching little fish has got to be a good sign for the health of the flounder stocks and the future of our local fishing. That is, of course, as long as the multitudes of flounder being released are indeed able to survive process, and therein lies the potential problem of what is known as “post-release mortality.”
As its name suggests, PRM is a situation where, even though a fish (any fish – not just flounder) is released, it dies anyway. Mortality can come from injuries and/or stress suffered during the struggle or during the unhooking process. In some cases, PRM can result from predation by other fish (such as sharks) after an already weakened fish is returned to the water.
Anglers need to remember that just because a fish swims away when they put it back in the water, it does not mean that it’s going to be “all right” and live to a ripe old age. In any situation when a lot of undersize fish are being caught, fishermen should be very aware of the dangers of PRM and do all they can to prevent it from occurring in the fish they release. Smart anglers will prepare for catch-and-release before they even start to fish by ensuring that they are equipped with certain simple tools that will assist in the safe unhooking and release of any fish they are likely to land.
For small to medium size fish, one of the most valuable pieces of equipment anglers should have is as simple as a wet rag to wrap and hold a fish with while it’s being unhooked. A wet rag allows anglers to control a fish without having to squeeze the living daylights out of it or having it hurt itself by flopping all over the pier or deck of a boat. This is particularly helpful when it comes to fish with teeth like bluefish, or fish such as flounder that are extremely hard to hold in the first place.
The most important thing to remember is that any rag used to hold a fish MUST be very wet. Unfortunately it’s still common to see anglers who religiously wear a dry rag on their belt for the purpose of holding fish and wiping their hands. Quite frankly, anyone who holds a small fish in a dry rag may as well just toss the critter up on the beach or into their fishbox because it will have just about as much chance of survival in either of those places as going back in the water. Fish are covered with a layer of slime that protects them from harmful elements in the water. A dry rag, or even dry, bare-hands, will remove this slime and can result in the eventual death of the fish. A rag left soaking in a bucket of clean saltwater is handy and easy to find when a fish is brought aboard.
No fisherman should leave home without a pair of needle-nosed pliers because they allow anglers to carefully extract hooks from inside the mouths of fish they catch without damaging the delicate gills. A couple of different sizes of pliers will allow fishermen more flexibility when they’re faced with various situations.
There’s no question that one of the best tools a fisherman can have to protect the health of the fish they release is a de-hooking tool. These tools come in various shapes and sizes, but most are as simple as an icepick with the last half-inch bent over to form a hook. When a fish is brought in, the de-hooker is slid down the line to the hook. The angler then pulls the leader or line in one hand away from the de-hooker in the other hand. This action inverts the hook and allows the angler to shake the fish off the hook without ever having to touch it.
The process is so quick and easy that the fish is back in the water almost before it even knows that it’s been taken out! For large fish that are too big to remove from the water, and for fish that have swallowed the hook, there is a tool that’s marketed under the name of “ARC Dehooker” that will actually remove the hook from even a gut-hooked fish.
Most fishermen will agree that our marine resources are too valuable to catch only once, and with any luck, the small flounder that anglers are releasing these days will live long enough to at least reach the keeper size of 16-inches. Fishermen who make the effort to have the proper tools on hand to safely unhook and release undersize fish today will not only enjoy their own fishing experience more, but also help ensure that fishermen in the future will have something to catch as well.
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
