On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:28:45 GMT, notbob wrote:

On 2008-10-16, daytripper wrote:
Gotta tie lots of flies for these salmon runs: I had to pop loose or outright
break off at least a half-dozen fish for every one fair-hooked, and then the
odds of actually landing a fair-hooked fish aren't great -

Sounds like you had big fun.

For the still-newbs, could you clarify "fair-hooked"? Thnx.

"Fair-hooked" means hooked in the mouth, as opposed to anywhere else (with
"anywhere else" designated "foul-hooked").

It's usually a dead-giveaway that a salmon is foul-hooked when it is doing
cartwheels across the stream, whereas a fair-hooked fish will usually try to
bull its way out. Generally, people will try to long-line release or simply
break-off a fish once it's obvious the fish isn't fair-hooked. That's always
been my practice, as I'm releasing everything anyway, and indeed that was
almost always the practice of other folks on the river from my observations. I
saw very few foul-hooked fish being fought once it was evident that the hook
wasn't anywhere near the mouth.

Note that a fair-hook doesn't necessarily mean the fish willingly tried to eat
the fly or nailed it out of "anger" - there's really no way to know that in
any given case, and I don't delude myself on that issue if I don't see the
actual take. It could just as easily be the result of snagging the fish in the
mouth - even if there was no intent and/or one never saw the fish to begin
with, which was almost always the case for us because of the high water while
we were on the river. Not a lot of sight-fishing this trip...

/daytripper