In need of a ruling

[Florida Boy]

Ok I'm in need of a ruling, and I figured what better place to turn than the pro's here at BBG :).

Ok so what counts as caught? I've heard many rules about this over the years such as, it's counts when you get a clear enough view to identify the fish, it counts if you've had it on your line for x amount of time, it counts if you touch the leader, it doesn't count till it touches the bank or it's in your hand, etc. etc. I want to know what y'all count as caught. And yes I am looking for some sort of justification for the fish I hooked but didn't quite get all the way in today lol

[John Sheehan]

heh heh

 

[dick tabbert]

Nice one Lord of the fly Rod and cute I may have to use that one, one day if I remember it- that's another story.

[Vic Tankersley]

That's great stuff there, Don't care who you are ...gitter done...LOL

[Bruce Condello]

If somebody wanted to say that I didn't catch a fish because I purposely allowed it to swim free by not handling it, then I'm perfectly OK with that. :-)  Like I said, I've had days where I released fish by grabbing the lure with a hemostat right in front of my waders, and did this dozens of times.  If somebody told me I wasn't catching fish, I'd say, "Good, then I'm sure you don't want to fish here!"  LOL

[John Sheehan]

yeah!

 

[dick tabbert]

Bruce lots of people use hemostats and pliers to release fish most because they don't want to remove the protective slime that's on the fish and then you have people like my wife who just don't want to touch a slimy fish. Fact is you were actually in control of the fish's destiny you had the option either release it or keep it so you caught the fish in that circumstance.

[Leo Nguyen]

Hemostat?! The last time I used that was back during biomed studies doing some suturing. You guys actually use hemostats? Wow. And I thought using a basic BIC pen rigged to remove hooks quickly for small mouth gill was crazy.

[JBplusThuy]

Sure do! I even have two :-)

How does the Bic pen rig work?

[Leo Nguyen]

Take a small BIC pen that has the smallest body, cut the body a straight line from top to bottom using a rotor tool with a diamond circular blade. The slit will allow the line to slide in. The pointy hollow end will engage the hook, hiding the hook's sank and 80% of the hook's curvature. Just a quick jolt down on the fish and the fish get disengaged from the hook. It works best with the barbless hooks.

[cal okeefe]

different strokes for different folks.... that makes the world go around..

everyone has different views on a caught fish

but i think dick hit it on the head.. if you have control of the fish..

[Vic Tankersley]

OK, I'll be serious for just a minute......If you catch a Galiath grouper you are not allowed to take him from the water, so measurements have to be made in the water, then he is released. This is concidered a catch, you have control of that fish until you are ready for his release. Trout have a fine membrane which protects them from desease, if you handle him too much you will damage that membrane and the fish after a while will die, so releasing him with hemostats or other devises would be the best thing to do to keep the fish healthy. your release may vary but you have control of that fish..If you have a fish on and you are not in complete control and it breaks off or flops around and comes off you don't have that control and you can only guess size and weight and as you guys know when we guess that fish grows tremendously in about a week, so if you can control , weigh, measure and ask it to supper, it's a caught fish ...HA HA LOLRITF

[Leo Nguyen]

If you have a goliath grouper flopping near your boat, I don't think you'll have the strength to haul it in or even the means to get it to shore in order to handle it. Cut it free, but need that special record to prevent the "fish of a tale" issue..you know what I mean? LOL I've seen a sexy woman from a video hauling in a goliath grouper, and she nearly lost her gears  and bikini set pulling that thing in. She ended up release it because the fish was too big to be hauled up by two people for the "fish in hands" shots. Well, they got the evident for the fish, including the release..so..they caught it. Would be better if she lost it along with everything else..priceless moment ROFL..oooo..sorry. I'm bad.