What Size Panfish Do You Harvest?

[Bruce Tomaselli]

I never thought about this until I read a recent post. What size pan fish do you harvest? I believe most of the gills I keep are 7" and the crappies have to be at least 9" in PA.

[dick tabbert]

Tony is probably real close to right on the hybrid striper. I have about 15 in my pond and do enjoy watching then but detour from targeting them because I have herd what Tony has says on more than 1 occasion. Now this being said we do catch them on occasion while fishing for gills and when they hook up the fight is on you will know its a striper. I try to get then in as quick as possible unhook then and from there I put them in a large basket in the pond. I monitor the fish try to keep them moving and after awhile when I see there active on there own I turn them back into the pond. I will say 2 years ago one of the kids caught one took about 20 pictures of him and the fish out of the water the whole time. Then when he went to put it in the basket it came out of his hand and thumped around on the dock. Finally it got put in the monitoring basket I came back later and the fish was released by the young man who caught it he said it looked OK in the basket. 2 days later I found about a 2 foot striper floating and bloated on the beach.  We do catch then every once in awhile but keep handling to a minimum and monitor often them release them back into the pond. I have been lucky only loosing 1 in 6 years.  I know of they are the 1st to the feeder and last to leave lots of fum to watch. .

[Tony Livingston]

While I was researching yesterday, I ran across a study that claimed SCENTED artificial baits were nearly as responsible for mortal hooksets as live bait.

[Slip Sinker]

were they more specific?

[Tony Livingston]

Here you go, Slip:

Recently the use of scented artificial bait has increased.  It is thought that scented artificial baits may be attacked by the fish in a similar manner as live bait, thus increasing mortality.  In support of this hypothesis, Schisler and Bergersen (1996) found that hooking mortality was significantly higher when fish were caught on scented bait than when non-scented artificial bait was used.  However, Dunmall et al. (2001) found that there was no effect of scented artificial bait on catch-and-release mortality of smallmouth bass. These studies suggest that the use of organic bait, and possibly scented artificial bait, results in deeper hooking which increases the chance of injury during hook removal and increases the length of time that the fish are exposed to air during hook removal.  Thus, catch-and-release mortality can be reduced through the use of artificial bait.

Found here: 

http://www.wildtroutstreams.com/CatchRelease/catch_and_release_revi...

 

[Leo Nguyen]

And to confirm, scented bait, combined with smaller sized offering, does induce deep gutting. I found that for a fact after using the distilled product. I dipped the offering from maggot/spike size, ad incresed to Phoenix worm size, still induced deep gut hooked. I now only use between a large cricket to half a nightcrawler size if i use the distilled product again. When I used the YAP Cheese formula, I increased the ball size to as big, if not bigger, than the relaxed target species sphincter. This minimize deep gut hooking. So far, less than 3 incidents for the past decade, with the 3 instances being a reduction of the bait for sitting in the water too long.

[Slip Sinker]

thanks Tony!

[carl hendrix]

OK;; ALLOF THIS INFORMATION MAKES FOR A GREAT READ;; NOW; FOR ANOTHER QUESTION;; ISNT THE SIZE; AND TYPE OF HOOK; ALSO DETERMINAL TO GUT HOOKED FISH ?  LETS SAY; COMPARE A RATHER LARGE NO. 4 HOOK;; COMPARED TO SAY; A NUMBER 10 HOOK !  SHORT SHANK;; VERSUS  LONG SHANK??   HOW ABOUT IT TONY;; ANY INFORMATION ON THAT ?  IT WOULD SEEM TO ME; THAT A LONG SHANK TYPE HOOK WOULD BE EASIER; TO REMOVE VERSUS A SHORT SHANK;; ( EASIER TO GRAB HOLD OF A LONGER SHANK );; AND LEO;; DONT BE SHY; ADD TO THIS TO BUDDY; LOL

[Leo Nguyen]

Well Carl, that's a partial submission of facts discovery. Smaller hooks for larger fishes don't mean you have an instant gut-hook. Rather, it's a greater chance. I have size 14 and 10 hooks snagged onto LMB, carp, catfish, and large holdover trout in their mouths, and rarely do I have them gut hooked. Bait stealers will run off as they engulf the offering, and the moment they detect the line, they will turn tail and run. Before that bait can enter their esophagus, the bait is hell at the upper roof of the jaw, between mid and close to the sphincter of mouth. How fast or slow the angler set his/her hook dictates if the hook will be set shallow, or deep within the mouth, regardless of hook's length or width of the hook's gap.

Angler, correct me if I'm wrong, but the rig types will also predict the chance of a gut hook:

Dropshot, with eye of hook flushed with leader: less than 5%.

Dropshot, with 3 to 4 in branch extension, also known as 3-way extension rig: chance of gut hook is 35%.

Texas and Carolina rigs and variation: 50% to 65%.

Alabama umbrella rig: none. Foul hooking is extremely high.

Snell knot rig: 25% to 35%. Foul hooking increased to 75% when the hooks are separated by only 4 inches.

[Tony Livingston]

Found this, Carl, in the same article I referenced earlier.

 Although considerable variation exists between species in the effects of gear type on catch-and-release mortality, several generalizations can be made.  While there is some variation among species, the use of circle hooks tends to reduce mortality.  Circle hooks differ from traditional J-style hooks in that the point of the hook is generally perpendicular to the shank (Figure 1).  Circle hooks have been found to be less susceptible to becoming deeply embedded; however, there is some evidence that, in bluegill, the incidence of eye injuries may be greater (Cooke et al., 2003b).  In a review of the effectiveness of circle hooks, Cooke and Suski (2004) found that, the use of circle hooks reduced overall mortality rates by approximately 50%,  but that there was variation among species. 

Barbless hooks are often recommended as an alternative to barbed hooks to decrease catch-and-release mortality.  In fact, Manitoba and Alberta have regulated that only barbless hooks may used for angling in those jurisdictions to reduce catch-and-release mortality.  Barbless hooks have been demonstrated to reduce handling time through ease of removing the hook, thereby decreasing associated mortality (Cooke et al., 2001).  Schaeffer and Hoffman (2002) also demonstrated that the unhooking times of barbless hooks were significantly shorter than barbed hooks, however, the same study indicated that anglers landed 22% more fish using barbed hooks than barbless hooks.  Similarly, the use of barbless hooks has been found to significantly reduce mortality in trout (Taylor and White, 1992).  It has also been suggested that barbless hooks reduce tissue damage.  Thus, while barbless hooks are generally less harmful to fish, anglers may be reluctant to use them because they perceive that catch rates will suffer.

[Leo Nguyen]

And this has been a constant battle between C&R/CPR communities for the past + decade. I wage the same war with my wife as well. Although we disagreed on utilizing barbless hooks for C&C/CPR, we agreed upon using barbed hooks to catch species that we will hold onto as our meals, such as tilapia.

Most of our hooks have been replaced with octopus, circle, and sickle, and to the tiniest version of the octopus hook known as #16 salmon hooks. Wish they make circle hooks down to #22 for stock trout.

[jim cosgrove]

really have not lost many fish due to barbless hooks.i only use them on small flies.the ones i use have a longer point that is super sharp.believe me i have hook ed myself  plenty.i believe these were developed in europe for competition fishing.it is also a lot easier to keep tension on the fish with the long rod so that comes into play.

[dick tabbert]

I'm changing over to barbless for most flies. Problem I have thousands of barbed hooks so I can't go barbless completely at least not now.