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Is it just an old wives' tale that if you gill-hook a fish, it is guaranteed to die?
Blog post. I accidentily gill-hooked a bass (details at the link), and it seemed to survive. Are bass super tough, or did I just not hook him badly enough? I always get really freaked out when I gill-hook them because I hate to kill a growing fish.
Gill hooked fish have the odds stacked against them but like any injury it's all in how bad it really is and the species of fish coupled with the water conditions at the time. We had a bullhead last for years in a farm pond with a 22 caliber pellet lodged deep in it's skull. Fellow up the road caught it, shot it, found it alive when he got home that night and released it in a small pond to be harvested later. Turns out it lived for years. Other fish aren't nearly so hardy.
In my experience, gill hooked fish don't survive long, even if they appear to be okay when released. The gills are red because they are blood rich with the blood vessels close enough to the surface to allow oxygen in through the thin membrane. If a gill is ripped or damaged, the fish usually loses too much blood to survive long. If the damage is very minor, they may make it, but I suspect that many more deep-hooked fish die after we release them than we think.
Jim Smith
I caught a pike with a portion of a gill literally hanging out from under it's gill plate. It had obviously been that way for some time.
I agree the odds are not great for survival.. but coincidently, I also caught a pike in the same condition as Tig.. Obvious old injury, fine and feeding. I just had a thought :-o - this was also in Ontario.. I'll bet it was the same fish. :P
Good call Hidehunter - there is only one pike in Ontario but we keep that a secret;)
There is no way one could advocate releasing a gill damaged fish, especially if one does harvest occasionally for table fare and the fish is legal. Of course nature will utilize an occasional contribution with gusto.
That said, we too have caught a fish with two gills ripped loose, protruding, and healed over.....it was a largemouth of maybe a pound to a pound and a half.
....lee s.
We have a 21 inch limit on largemouth, and he was far from legal. That's where I feel torn. I've always felt that it's better to save and eat a gill hooked fish, if its obvious they won't survive.
Fish would not survive long if gills were as fragile as some think. After all most of the fish we catch are predators, and swallow their food whole and struggling, right past their gills.
Personally I think it's more hype than anything. I've gilled my share and never seen them floating later on even with multiple back-to-back days of fishing in the same place. But I think it depends more on the species. A trout, yeah they probably don't do too well. A bass or blue gill just laugh at it.