Pulling Perch from Deep Water

[stellarfisher]

Was fishing last weekend for Perch in deeper water than I probably should have been in. I think I may have killed some smaller perch by accident. Does anyone know if you can release perch that have had their "air-sac" come out of their mouth. Or a method so they can be released?

[Jaspernuts]

To avoid this situation just reel the fish in at a steady slow pace from deep water. If you reel them up too fast - it can kill them.

[stellarfisher]

Was fishing in about 50' and I took 2 minutes to reel up some small perch 8-9" and it didnt work.

[stellarfisher]

I heard of some technique using a syringe to extract the excess pressure from the inside of the chest cavity, that is really what I am wondering about.

[tisosy11]

I don't think the success rate on that is very high...I would say your best bet is to be delicate with your fillet knife!

[David Kasten]

fish shallower water.

[Dean Schellinger]

Another option is to get a camera and don't let the little ones bite!

[delta hunter]

What you can also do is take your hook and pock a whole in the sack and let it deflate. Once you do that they should be good to go. Don't worry about the sack, the perch will swallow it to get it back in to place. This doesn't hurt them in anyway! I was told about this by a reliable source some years ago and have used this technique for years!

[Spazzums08]

What about the eyes? We pulled some small sauger out of LOW this week that looked like those big-eyed goldfish at pet stores.

[vitalshot5]

Who's your reliable source??.....every study i've seen or heard says that is a farce....please explain before giving such advice.

[Spazzums08]

To me, it would seem to let the fish breath/go down the hole, but without an air sack (since you poked a hole in it) the fish would most likely not survive in the long run.

[thirtysomething]

Fish Shallow.

[TylerJ.]

ive had alot better luck fishing the yellow guys in shallow water

[icehousebob]

One of my brothers fishes Perch in the deep impoundments in the Black Hills. Sometimes he fishes in 80 feet of water,because that's where the only Perch are. Whatever fish are caught are keepers. If you can't revive them, they're part of you limit.

[kwohl]

poking the sack with a hook does get them down the hole but i don't know their fate afterwards.

[dakotakid31]

Also ran into this in 46 ft of water but only a few were small. I just kept them and still got a decent chunk of meat. Hate it when people leave em in the hole.

[Ray Esboldt]

There is technique called fizzing where you take a syringe stick it into the side of the fish just under the lateral line at about the halfway point of the fishes dorsal fin. I have seen it done on walleyes in a livewell and it does put them back to an upright swim. However, there is quite a bit of written material that speaks against the idea. My guess is that most fish biologists would not recommend this procedure. I would be interested to hear from one on their views about this procedure.

[timjones]

There was a study done by the Fisheries Section, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources on "fizzing" and mortality rates of the different fish species being brought up from different depths. They also contacted the various states and other Canadian provinces to find out which ones if any regulated the act of fizzing. According to their table, Minnesota was listed as "no - not allowed". Haven't been able to find anything in the Minnesota regulations to confirm this. I would post a link to the article but I don't know if that is allowed on this site.

[Catfishunter]

Don't think it works on eye's and perch.

The only fish it works on are ones that do not have a sealed air bladder (catfish, dog fish and pout). Eye's and perch fill there bladder through osmoses. More then likly if you try to fizz a perch you still are poping a hole(death).

[FrontenacPike]

I posted a thread about this about 2 weeks ago, alot of replies.

http://www.fishingminnesota.com/forum/ub...967#Post1263967