by Gord Pyzer illustrations: Michael Gellatly Off the Hook Finally, an easy way to safely release those deeply hooked fish After more than half a century of angling, I thought I’d seen everything in the world of freshwater fishing. I was dead wrong. Last May, while shooting some footage for television on Ontario’s Rainy Lake, my good friend and In-Fisherman editor-in-chief Doug Stange taught me a revolutionary new way to rescue deeply hooked fish. Without doubt the most important conservation technique to come along since the advent of catch-and-release fishing, this hook-removal method works so well that anglers may never again inadvertently kill another fish. Sound too good to be true? Read on. This technique works so well that anglers may never again inadvertently kill a fish      Over the last 20 years, biologists and anglers alike have learned that if they introduce selective-harvest practices (special seasons, creel limits, sanctuaries, minimum and maximum sizes and slot limits), they can both maintain and enhance our freshwater fishing resources. Where these measures have been implemented, you often find that the fishing for walleye, bass, trout, pike and muskellunge is now better than it ever was.      Underpinning nearly all of these new regulations is the requirement to carefully release at least some of the fish you catch, usually the larger females—the most important part of the breeding population. If such an enlightened angling ethic is to succeed, though, it’s essential that the fish we release actually survive. As it stands, not every fish does make it, especially if it has swallowed a hook, a common problem when anglers use live bait and scented soft-plastic lures.      Currently, the commonly accepted way to release a deeply hooked fish is to simply cut the line and leave the hook stuck in the fish’s stomach. The belief here is that the hook will eventually rust away and leave the fish relatively unharmed. It turns out there’s no scientific foundation to this theory, however (see “Hard to swallow”). Indeed, I’ve seen the rotting stomach cavities of muskellunge that perished after being released with hooks embedded in their bellies, the razor-sharp points having gnawed wicked holes through their stomach linings. Talk about a slow and painful death.      Enter the groundbreaking, through-the-gill hook-removal method that Stange has been championing (see the step-by-step instructions starting on the next page). He was first shown the tactic while filming on Florida’s Lake Tohopekaliga, which is famous for its gigantic largemouth bass. The fish are usually caught using a local technique that involves fishing a foot-long shiner suspended under a small balloon. This method can be tricky, though: If you set the hook too soon after your balloon goes down, you’ll miss the fish. If you wait even a second too long to set the hook, you end up deeply hooking the fish.      Stange did exactly that on his first fish of the day. When he looked down the six-pounder’s throat, he could see only the eye of the 6/0 Gamakatsu extra-wide-gap hook sticking out of its gullet. Stange was sure the fish was a goner. But his guide, Jamie Jackson, deftly slid his fingers between the fish’s gills, turned the hook around and easily slipped it out. After a quick photo, the bass was back in the water swimming away, none the worse for wear. Stange reckons more than a quarter of the fish they hooked over several days had been caught before—and many after they had swallowed the hooks.      Clearly, if every angler could learn this technique, virtually no more fish would die as a result of deep hooks. Besides, if we anglers are going to talk the talk about selective harvest, modern fish management practices and good angling ethics, we need to walk the walk when it comes to this hook-removal technique. And that means making a point of learning how to do it (as shown in the following illustrations).      The first time I tried this method I couldn’t believe how easily and effortlessly the hook slid out of the fish’s gullet; there was no blood or evidence of tissue damage. I even took a few walleye and smallmouth that had been deep-hooked and put them in my aerated livewell to see if they might develop signs of stress. They didn’t. In fact, I had to chase the fish around the livewell before I could grab them and release them back into the lake. And I’m absolutely certain they lived on to fight again another day. PART 1 | PART 2