I quickly killed it and proceeded to get at what was on the other end
from the loop sticking out of its mouth. It was a huge size-8 hook deep
in its stomach with not just a barb on the tip of the hook, but with a
couple on the shaft for good measure! How did this fish get away from
the person who hooked it? I want to believe that it was because of a
poor knot, a broken swivel or just dropped back in accidentally. I
don't want to think that someone would release a little fish with a
large hook in its gut and a couple of inches of mono sticking out of
its mouth on purpose.
I think an incident like this is fairly rare but illustrates one of the problems of big, barbed hooks.
The person that lost this fish used a large #8 size hook (the curve
would be about the size of the curve of a woman's little fingernail)
attached to #15 test monofilament (that's strong enough to land a
30-pound Atlantic salmon) and attached a fat worm. Anyone can dangle
such a setup into almost any pool or bubbling white water on any of the
tributaries that feed the Mad River from our surrounding mountains.
They will hook trout. But they will also kill trout, usually because of
injuries undersized fish sustain when handled during hook extraction.
More often than not the fish will not be the six- to eight-inch fish
that fit so well into a medium-size frying pan but much smaller fish.
Trying to release a delicate three- or four-inch trout from the vicious
barb of a large hook is almost impossible to do without holding and
damaging the fish to the point that, although it might swim away when
released, it will not survive. It will not grow into the six- to
eight-inch fish you would prefer to catch. If one can make every
conceivable effort to release an undersized fish without harming it, it
will stand a chance to grow larger. It's a no brainer.
Fly fishing or spinning with barbless hooks will cause minimal damage
as the fish will invariably get hooked in the lip, where, by holding
the shaft of the hook with a pair of forceps, it is very easy to slip
the hook free without even touching the fish.
So I have some suggestions for those of you out there that like to take
home a wild, tributary-raised brook trout or two for dinner every once
in a while, would prefer harvesting mature fish and don't want to
inadvertently kill immature ones.
- Use flies or small spinners with the barb(s) pinched down. If you
are going to worm fish, do the following. Pinch down the barb on the
point and any barbs on the shank. Apart from minimizing possible
injury, this also gives the trout a sporting chance.
- Carry a pair of forceps or a pair of small needle-nose pliers. Bring
the fish into the shallows, grasp the hook shank with the pliers, give
a twist and set that three-inch brookie free, unharmed, to grow into an
eight-inch brookie.
- Tie proper knots, ones that are designed for monofilament. Make sure
snap swivels are closed so that an incident such as I experienced can't
happen.
- And remember: "Conserve, preserve, and enjoy within reason." If you
regularly fish one particular brook, and go by the state's allowed
daily limit of 12 fish per person, you will catch all the fish in it in
next to no time and the stream will be fishless.
- Consider "catch and release" fishing. Once you catch and keep a fish
the river has one less trout, and the amount of fishing on that stream
is reduced. That is a real problem on a stream that doesn't hold that
many sizeable fish to begin with. But if you release the fish it means
that you bettered it, that it will have a chance to grow bigger, to
spawn and give you a chance to catch it again next year. By all means
catch and kill the hatchery-raised rainbows that are stocked by the
state on the bigger rivers. They won't breed and probably won't survive
the winter anyway. But the tributary brook trout are wild, native fish.
For their size our native brook trout are one of the brightest and
feistiest of freshwater fish, but they are not as plentiful as we would
like, in part because of the high 12 fish per day limit set by the
Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife. The tributaries of the Mad
River are not stocked with hatchery fish in the spring; they are wild
fisheries. Let's not abuse them. "Conserve, preserve, and enjoy within
reason."
Michael Ware lives in Waitsfield.
