chas wrote:

I wondered about the Alaska statistic about the number of injuries, and then I
remembered their fondness for pegging beads above the hook. Even the legal 2
inches is enough slack to put the bead in the mouth and the hook in an eye.
Fishing one or two single egg flies around here and up in Alaska not gill
hooked or even injured a steelhead yet, and that's probably about 50 fish.

I say blame the beads, not C&R.

Chas
remove fly fish to e mail directly


But I'm sure you "injured" a few of them by the Alaskan study's criteria.

The study cited not just "serious" injuries, such as a damaged eye, but
minor ones such as being able to distinguish the small area where the
hook had penetrated the mouth - any visual indication that a fish has
been hooked. "Novice anglers injured proportionally more fish than
experienced anglers (70% and 56% injury rate, respectively)." Based on
their criteria, the majority of fish caught by the anglers in the study
were "injured".

ALL heavily fished, C&R water (or water with strict slot limits) is
going to have LOTS of fish that have some "minor" indication of having
been hooked. ANY heavily fished water is also have a considerable number
of fish with significant injuries ie. damage to the eye, gill cover,
missing maxillaries etc.

No matter how careful you are as an angler, you can't stick a piece of
metal through a fish's mouth and drag it around without leaving some
indication that this had been done.


Willi