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Posts: 91
Location: Wausau | I am not a live bait fisherman at all, I don't know much about it but I have a question I hope you can all help me with. I have a guy telling me he caught a 50" two nights ago on a sucker, he let this fish take the sucker for 15 minutes. He claims he put the fish back after measurements and pictures and she was fine. My thoughts are that fish is dead, if he let the fish swim with the sucker for 15 minutes before he set hooks to her, he ripped her guts out. Can someone who knows about live bait fishing help me out with the facts please. I would hate to think that fish is belly up.
Thanks |
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Posts: 382
| Sharpen your fillet knife! She's a goner |
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Posts: 2515
Location: Waukesha & Land O Lakes, WI | All depends on what kind of sucker rig he was using, but looking at the time frame of 15 minutes.....I'd have to say that's a killer no matter the rig used. |
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Posts: 120
Location: Chicago, IL | This is not a new topic by any means... if you ran a search on the archived threads you will certainly find many opinions about the use of live bait and the means of rigging the bait.
One thing is for certain. If a fish swallows the hook and then gets a hammering hookset into it's gullet, then it is dead, period. I would recommend if you ever try live bait to use a quick strike rig and set immediately. It is the safest thing for the fish.
Others will say that you can use a circle hook and not harm the fish... maybe so... but the fish still has to swallow the hook and there is a chance that the hook will become lodged in the belly of the fish. If this happens the fish dies.
I would recommend clicking on "search" in the upper right hand corner of this page and use "single hook , quick strike, sucker, or circle hook" as your key words.
DJH |
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Posts: 1462
Location: Davenport, IA | Not necessarily dead. It may have hooked itself before it could swallow the sucker. Just tell the person to use a quickstrike and set the hooks right away next time. If the person is for catch and release chances are they will switch when you tell them how much safer quickstrikes are and how good the hooking percentage is. |
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Posts: 333
Location: menasha wi 54952 | We dont know all the facts. For all we know he may have been using a circle hook and did not damage the fish at all.
Mike
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| If he retrieved his circle hook, the fish should be just fine |
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Live Bait question