Catch and release principals

[Chris Shelton]

I have a question and not an answer! What do you do if a fish takes the fly and it gets lodged far back in its throat,so far back its almost in its stomach? Do you A) Bite the line and let it die at a later stage B) Kill the fish and put it out its misery or C)Try get the fly out knowing that you will cause damage and most likely kill the fish!

I must say, I have never had this happen to me on the dry, but have experienced it from time to time whilst fishing deep and slow in stillwaters. I recently killed a fish that had swallowed the fly right down, beyond forceps reach. Any sign of blood and I dispatch the fish.

[izak]

On the odd ocasion when the fish bleeds too much I kill it. I dont like dead fish drifting down stream.

[Fario]

Kill em all I say - and then eat them sushi

[Nepptune]

Not sure if this is the right place to bring this up.....but what the hell, seeing as its about Catch and Release, I'll dive right in!!!

Circle Hooks:

How many of y'all have ever fished with them, and if so, what have your experiences been?

I have been using them for a few years now, having discovered them in the Caribbean where we started using them for live baiting Tarpon, then on to botoom fishing and chunking for Tuna, to bonefish and Snook and pretty much everything esle.
Now that was conventional fishing with baits, both live and dead, and they worked incredibly well, seeing as we were releasing most fish, a guaranteed scissors hook up was a great thing!
We then progressed to fishing them on Artificials such as jigs, leadheads, spoons, swimming plugs and even surface pludgs, all to great effect.

Then of course it had to be tried with flies, and after seeing some top notch Tarpon Anglers ( I think it may even have been Billy Pate ) using circles for Tarpon, we followed suit with some success.

Now my question is this: Is anyone in this country using circle hooks to target Trout? I know the carp and Barble guys, much under the influence of Sean Mills have been using them as well as a few Yellowfish anglers.

Do circles have a place on our streams? Can they work in the dry fly format? Can they work in the nymph format?
I know that when using stillwater patterns, and fishing deep with flies such as Boobies or even buzzers, which a fish can swallow really deeply, the Circle hooks trick of catching in the scissors can be an amazing benefit to the whole catch and release ideal......

Ok, so thats a long post, but I hope one that may bring me some answers on this subject which I find quite intriguing.

Thanks

Andre

[NeilRowe]

Does one get Circle hooks in small sizes - say between #16 and 20?

[Nepptune]

Does one get Circle hooks in small sizes - say between #16 and 20?

Funny you should ask Neil, I was actually going to call you and ask you as I thought you might know!!!

[NeilRowe]

I've seen them in the shops but never in small sizes. M C did a nice write up on them on the old forum. "Fish" could probably clear this up

[Chris Shelton]

I've seen them in the shops but never in small sizes. M C did a nice write up on them on the old forum. "Fish" could probably clear this up

what are circle hooks

[NeilRowe]

Round hooks

[gkieser]

Not just small sizes, but do they make them on lightweight hooks, and also do they make them in any other finish than the shiny silver ones I have seen?