A Self-Releasing Fish Hook

Most anglers agree that non-offset circle hooks are the best live-bait hook to use when catch-and-release fishing. Further, some fisheries mandate the use of circle hooks when targeting species such as striped bass, billfish or bottom fish. The design of a circle hook, with its hook point aimed in line toward the hook shank, allows an angler to reel tight to a fish rather than use a traditional “jaw-jacking” hookset.

Non-offset (also called inline) circle hooks are great at avoiding gut-hooking, making it much easier for anglers to unhook fish for healthy releases. (Keep in mind that offset circle hooks have a hook point that does not aim directly at the hook shank, but rather slightly to a side, leading to higher chances of gut-hooking.)

Bite-Shortened Fishing Hooks

With circle hooks the standard in conservation, researchers out of Florida modified an existing inshore jighead to see if they could create hook that allowed anglers to land and release fish without ever touching them. The new hook, which researchers called a “bite-shortened hook,” takes release fishing to a whole new level. To make the hook, researchers cut in half the length of the bite on their jigheads and then re-sharpened to create a hook point.

One of the researchers, Holden Harris, of the University of Florida, presented their findings at the 2022 Bonefish & Tarpon Trust International Science Symposium.

“Even with circle hooks, hook injuries, fish handling, and air exposure can lead to discard mortality,” said Holden. “Handling fish improperly can cause internal damage, disrupt the epidermal mucus membrane, and increase infection and risk of predation. And too much discard mortality can make fishing unsustainable.”

The study used three types of jigheads — standard J-hook, barbless J-hook and bite-shortened J-hook — to catch spotted seatrout on the seagrass flats of Cedar Key, Florida. The researchers fished each hook type to catch 75 speckled trout.

Results of the Fishing Study

What Holden considered a landing success was fighting a seatrout close enough to the boat to be within a net’s reach, or about 1 meter from the gunwale.

“A successful self-release was allowing the seatrout to the throw hook boat side, within 10 seconds, without ever touching the fish,” he explained. “Often, all we had to do was allow a little slack in the line and let the seatrout jump, thrash or headshake.”

Holden and his team used logistic models to assess the differences in landing success and self-release success by hook type and fish size. Seatrout were classified as “small” or “large” — either longer or shorter than about 13 inches.

“The average landing success was greater than 90 percent with all three hook types,” said Holden. “Bite-shortened hooks were able to successfully self-release 87 percent of landed fish, compared to success rates of 47 percent using barbless hooks and 20 percent using standard hooks. Small fish had higher rates of both unintentional release during reel-in and intentional handling-free release boat side.”

The bite-shortened hook self-released almost 90 percent of the seatrout it caught. The numbers speak for themselves— the bite-shortened hook flat out worked as intended.

Will Anglers Use These Hooks?

Researchers aren’t exactly sure how the hook would be utilized by recreational fishermen and women.

• Would anglers buy these hooks if they were manufactured and sold?
• In what instances would anglers rather “shake off’ their fish instead of landing and releasing them?
• Do the quick releases hurt the fishing experience?
• Do anglers like to handle a fish before release? Will they miss touching a fish?
• Would anglers be okay with not taking pictures of their catches?

Holden believes more testing on bite-shortened hooks with other types of lures, fish species and skill level of anglers are warranted. The one opportunity he does see for bite-shortened hooks — fishing in sensitive fisheries, such as no-take aquatic reserves. Because bite-shortened hooks have minimal discard effects, these areas closed off from fishing pressure could potentially open up to recreational anglers if fishing methods used were only those that produced little-to-no post-release mortality.

The post A Self-Releasing Fish Hook appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

Source: https://www.saltwatersportsman.com/gear/self-releasing-fishing-hook/