CaptJohnWis

Very true. There are plenty of studies on gut hooked fish survival rates. I know Lindy Rig users that wait like 30 seconds before setting the hook! Circle hooks would greatly reduce gut hooking but few will use them. The only thing I still use live bait for is sturgeon. I use circle hooks and they work great. Almost every one I catch is hooked in corner of mouth. This includes the bass, walleye, and suckers that also eat my nitecrawlers while sturgeon fishing.

Heard recently at the fish cleaning station: "Sven, hurry up and finish cleaning those fish so we can go out and catch another limit." "But Ole I'm going as fast as I can. We don't want those fish-hogs getting em all." "Fish-hog" is so politically incorrect now days. One must now say "release challenged"

My guess (no actual data in story) is that most of these fish were caught deep and/or on live bait. Live bait leads to many more gut/gill hooked fish than lures. When you catch them in the lip out of shallow water, and release quickly almost none will die. I sometimes catch lively fish that have huge scars from pike or musky. If they can survive that, I doubt one little hole in their lip is going to kill them.

I'd rather be casting than cleaning. Headed out right now to do just that. Video at 10.

I'm off some. Looks like only 35% die. So the guys hooking them from forty feet only kill 35 of every hundred. Click link to review study: Deep water walleye study. I helped with this study I can assure you every fish we caught from 40 feet died. They couldn't swim back down due to air bladder swelling up. Birds had a good feed. These were smaller fish and the DNR quit collecting the small ones after they got quite a few. If they had kept every fish, I think the ratio would have been much higher. The big ones seem to handle it better. InFisherman has published other studies. Just because the fish swims away doesn't mean it survives. Just takes a few days before they die.

That is true in my case, pure guesswork. But I sure would like a peek in their freezers. I wouldn't report anyone unless I was positive they were breaking the law. The one guy I did report was on the WIsconsin River. He was a regular below this dam in October. I was too. He never released anything that I could see. One day he had a very young boy along. The kid never touched a rod the entire time and this guy kept at least 15 smallmouth bass. He had three places on his boat where he stored fish as I kept a close eye on him all day. No cell phone back then so had to wait until I got home to report him. I told the game warden about him. Couldn't miss his boat as it was covered in decals from tournaments and sponsors. Anyway the very next day we are both back fishing below the same dam. Big storm comes up so we both head in early. I arrive at ramp first and load my boat. Just behind me is the violator (no little boy this time). Game warden is waiting for him. Rain starts to pour down and he makes the guy open every compartment in his boat. But since we hadn't been fishing very long, he was legal. Still tickled me that the game warden went to all that trouble. (He never checked me and got soaked checking the other guy!) The violator never showed up below that dam again so I guess he got the message.

Have you considered digging tunnels into Minnesota? This could help you reach your goal faster.

I have no problem with an angler like you. The guys I am talking about go nearly every day and keep their limit every time if they catch em. They bring extra anglers along so they can keep even more fish that trip. How many hundreds (thousands?) of fish a year do they need to kill? If I knew for sure they had a freezer full, I would turn em in. But I think they do gift most of them away. I rarely have a bad day fishing but I am grumpy at times!

I know several expert anglers who insist on keeping every legal fish they catch. Why? Some of them go fishing every day and keep their limit every day. They even take extra anglers along so they can keep two or three limits. What do they do with all those fish? You can only legally have so many in your freezer. So I assume they sell or give them away. But why? Some will tell you the fish are for this or that special event - so they probably have way over their limit in the freezer. If they are giving them away to friends, why? How many of those given away go to waste? Plenty is my guess. And if they are selling them! I would report em in a heartbeat and hope they lose all fishing privileges forever. My personal rule is if I have ANY fish in the freezer, they git eaten before I keep another fish. If my friends want some fish, they can come along with me and catch em themselves. And for those that insist on pounding deep water walleyes, why?? Any walleye caught below 40 FOW is a dead walleye (crappies are even worse) whether released or not. Might take a few days, but they will all die. Reeling them in slowly will not help unless you mean 24 hours to bring em up from 40 feet. If you are into catch and release, please stay in shallower water. Spend more time fishing and less time cleaning. Report the fish hogs and other that abuse the resource.

It takes exactly one season to ruin a lake that has BIG bluegills. I found a lake one fall while bass fishing that had lots of bull blues. Pleanty of 9 inchers and a goodly number of 10s. We ice fished it early and had a ball. Nearly all the gills were loaded with tiny black parasites. I wanted to keep not a one of those but they fought just as good as a clean one. We had the lake to outselves. Somehow the word got out (Dane Genz did a video but did not release name of lake). I went back in March and the lake looked like a Swiss cheese. I have never seen so many holes! There were a bunch of fishermen and somebody else was shooting a another video. Nobody was catching much. Why they wanted to keep all those big parasite loaded gills is beyond me. But now it is just another pretty lake loaded with dink bluegills. Once you cull out the big ones, it is very hard for the lake to recover. Pelican at Orr is a perfect example. It used to be loaded with legit one pound (and even twos!) gills. I talked to guide who took out parties back in the heyday. He said once the word got out, every resort on the lake was full and some were renting out camping spots on their lawn! He took out one group of outdoor writers and filled a washtub with pound+ gills. This was decades ago, try catching a true "pounder" there now. A 10-incher is very rare now. But there are more dinks than anywhere I have fished. Gills can grow fast even up north if there are not too many of them. My best gill lakes now are shallow ones that froze out three or four years ago. Those first two crops of gills (somebody always throws in a few after freeze out) can be awesome since they have no competition for food. Any lake can pump out 7-inchers but it sure is fun to tie into a 10-incher. I am in favor of very liberal limits on gills under 8 inches but limited harvest of big ones.