releasing deepwater gills

[crewdog]

Just wondering the best way to revive some of the gills we pulled out of 35-40 FOW when we were fishing crappies. 2 6 inchers were too stunned and kept coming up finally I just put them in the bucket. Crappies had no problem jetting down to the bottom after being released (at least according to the vex) but the sunnies really had a hard time. Tried to keep my retrieves slow and my handling to a minimum but to now avail.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Its about all you can do, reel in very slowly. On another web site a while back I had heard of someone inventing a deep water release tool.. It was like a dropshot rig that was tied on another pole... and he woud jerk and the fish would come off down at the depth it was caught at... I'm not sure that would work or not?