BassBlaster

Where You Hook’em Matters

WhereSome more very cool research.  This study from Wilde and Pope (Texas Tech Un.), “A Simple Model for Predicting Survival of Angler-Caught and Released Largemouth Bass” used temperature acclimated largemouth bass and manual hooking in a controlled lab experiment to determine catch and release mortality (immediate or delayed). Using a 2/0 barbed worm hook manually embedded into one of 40 potential hooking locations, they simulated an actual catch by playing fish with rod and reel, lifting, removing hook with long nose pliers and then releasing the fish back into holding tanks and observing for 6 days (3 days for test results). They then combined their data with another previously reported test very similar in design and implementation to finalize their results.

Bass were acclimated at a range of temperatures between 7-27 deg. C. (45-81 deg. F.). Fish were then randomly assigned to groups and hooked in either the mouth (including tongue and gills), the esophogus or as a control (touched by hook in mouth but not actually hooked and then released back into tank). Turns out that 98% of the bass (all but one) hooked in the mouth survived the simulation, whereas only 66% of the esophogus hooked LMB did the same. All control fish survived. These results matched extremely well with the previous study, hence the combining.

One of the neatest results from the experiment was that there was no correlation to water temperature. Fish in the warmest water survived as well as fish in the coldest. The cool theory coming from that little discovery was that previous studies showing a relationship to temperature could partially be explained by lure type used and subsequent hooking location. Most cold water anglers use baits that have a high percentage chance of hooking the bass in its mouth. But as temperatures warm and more anglers start throwing various plastic baits on setups such as Carolina Rigs or wacky style, the liklihood of ingestion and subsequent esophogus hooking increases. So “some” of the relationship we’ve seen in delayed mortality studies could be related to lure type used and angler behavior. In tournament scenarios, the finger then also strongly points to things like livewell confinement and weighing stressors. But for everyday catch and release fishing, the overall survivability of bass is likely extremely high with the only concern coming with deep throat-hooked bass.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Gitcha Bassin' Fix

To Top