Swamp Yankee wrote:
I've had federal biologists fishing in my boat and asked that very question
& their reply is that if a fish is bleeding it will die of anemia within a
week to ten days of being released. Not all , but most will die. I use
lures that the fish cannot swallow. cranks & spinners are very easy on the
fish. Plastics are the worst for the fish in the hande of novices.Charlie

I've seen cranks and jerkbaits do far more damage than I've ever done to
a fish with a plastic. Earlier this year, I had three separate fish on a
jerkbait that I worried about the survival of. One of them no part of
the lure was visible when you looked down into the fish's open mouth. An
X-rap isn't a really BIG bait, but still the whole thing with 2 sets of
'sticky sharp' trebles right past the gills and into the gullet was
amazing. Everything in the boat got covered in blood before I even got
the longnoses onto the shank of a treble. The fish eventually swam off
under its own power, but I know @#$ well that it was snapping turtle
fodder by that evening.