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| I need help for tools that work best for deeply hooked fish. I was on Mille Lacs last weekend and a guy in a different boat caught a 53" muskie that swallowed his cowgirl. The guy was fishing by himself and he hollered for my help. I have a hook cutters, hook pick, longer pliers, mouth spreader and the standard length pliers. When I got over there you could barely see any lure out of the mouth, not good. I got the mouth spreader in position and the first tool I grabbed was the hook pick because it has worked good for me in the past. The only problem is I have never seen a fish this deeply hooked. It was not hooked in the gills but closer to the area of the throat as deep or as far as possible from the open area of the mouth. The hook pick would not work because there was basically no more room to push the hooks deeper to remove them. This was the same problem with the pliers, no more room to go deeper to remove the hooks. This got me thinking to cut the hooks as much as I could, but the problem with that is my hook cutters was not long enough to get that deep in the fish (especially with a thrashing fish).
The end result was that I got the hooks removed, but lets just say I was not happy with the way it went. We tried for 30 minutes to revive the fish, but it would not make it. The guy put it in his livewell and he is going to mount it. He then said he wished he would have never caught it. He felt really bad and so did I. I felt like I failed on saving the live of that fish. It was the deepest hooked fish I have ever seen and I have seen a lot of hooked fish. The guy also told me blood was just gushing out at the time he netted it. That got me thinking that the fish was going to die at the moment the hook was set that deep. It is not normal to have blood gushing out at the time a fish is netted.
Please keep this post positive. Yes, a fish died, but it was not intended for that to happen. I just want some advice on what could have happened to avoid the fish dieing. Would it be possible to buy a really long bolt cutters and just cut the hooks? Would the fish live with pieces of barbs stuck that deep in a fish? Was this fish a goner with that much blood gushing at the time it was netted? |
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Posts: 2024
| It's possible to MAYBE buy a giant set of bolt cutters, but in all likelihood that fish was a goner from the get-go. If it was gushing blood when the fella netted it, chances are the amount of trauma the fish went through during the fight and the amount of blood lost was enough to be fatal.
You can't necessarily control hooking location. It sounds like you and the other angler did as much as you could. These are the risks we take with these fish every time we make a cast. Kudos to you and the other angler for spending so much time trying to revive the fish! |
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Posts: 434
Location: searchin for 50 | It is what it is. Some fish are gonna die no matter how careful You are. I had the same thing happen to me only on a 39''. You cannot control where a fish is hooked and I don't think it would have mattered if you cut the hooks or not that fish was probably on its last fins in the net anyway. It sucks but thats fishing. |
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Posts: 734
Location: Watertown, MN | Unfortunately that is part of fishing, with 10's some fish totatly inhale them and there is not much that can be done when hooked that deep. One thing is have a pair of lindy glove to go in deep and start cutting. One thing also is you might have to do is start cutting the bait apart to get at the hooks. Yes you lose the bait, but might enable you more room or better visability to get the hooks out. A $20 bait is cheaper than a loss of a fish that caliper.
Troyz |
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Posts: 50
| Sometimes if your careful you can sneek a cutters through by the gills and get to a deeply hooked fish to cut hooks and then use the hook pick......But then again sometimes not...Sounds like you did what you could...Things happen and that is fact...You do what you can but sometimes dont succeed..All a person can do is try... |
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Posts: 8866
| This sort of stuff bugs me. Sure, its unfortunate. But it's fishing, and sometimes they're hooked badly. Barbless hooks might have made the unhooking process easier. But would that have saved the fish?? Nobody will ever know. What bugs me is that we (including myself here) have put these fish on a pedestal to the point where a guy catches a 53" fish and wishes he never caught it because it didn't survive. I can see feeling bad if you kill one on purpose, or because you forgot your hook cutters or whatever, but when a guy can't be proud of a 53" muskie even though he tried to save it?
That's not right. |
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Posts: 4266
| I was just going to say what Troy did. On fish caught on any blade bait, you can cut the shaft of the bucktail and strip all of the parts off and cut the shaft as close to the hook as you can. Now you are only dealing with the hook itself.
Anything hooked down in the throat is tough. Even if you can cut the hooks, you can't get them out. I had a 46" fish swallow a small Bobbiebait, and it was dead before it got to the boat. The water looked like a shark attack. When I finally got around to getting the hook out, there was only one hook in the fish, but you could barely see it because it was down in the throat.
I hope you are on the lake if I need help. Sounds like you were very prepared, but sometimes bad things happen to even the most well-intentioned anglers. |
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| You can also take a piece of pvc or aluminum and put it over the handle of the Hookpick to make it longer, same goes for Knipex cutters.
Make the handles LONG....which is why I carry 2 or 3 of everything in my boat. |
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Posts: 2686
Location: Hayward, WI | I agree with the others. It sounds like both of you did everything you could think of to try to save that fish. Sometimes bad things happen, as unfortunate as that is. That's a good idea to gave a pair of gloves in the boat so you can stick your hand in there without worry with the hook cutters. I don't have any gloves in my boat, but it's probably a good idea just for that purpose alone. Cutting the bait apart also sounds like a good idea when it's that deep too.
Once I snuck my Knipex behind the gills to get some DEEP hooks out of a 37" caught on a Weagle. When I saw how it was hooked I just said "Oh no" but it was released without shedding a drop of blood. But, with the length of the Knipex cutters, I wonder if you could even get them far enough in the mouth from the gills on a 53" fish. Sounds like in a way the size of this fish also compounded the difficulties.
Sounds like there have been a couple tips here, and you'll probably get a few more good ones. But overall, I really think you can rest assured you did everything you could.
curleytail |
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| Sometimes they just die, no matter how much effort is put into hook removal. Every one of the guides out there has had fish die, and big fish too. It goes with the territory. Kudos to you guys both for a valliant attempt. Steve |
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Posts: 1769
Location: Algonquin, ILL | POOP happens 
You made an attempt to release the beast to the best of your abilities, Hope the Taxidermist does a fine job on the mount and makes a mold of the beast for future replicas
Enjoy your Mount 
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Location: Twin Cities | Sorry to hear about it, mostly to console yours and the fisherman's feelings about it.
I wonder if a hook cutter similar to a knipex could be made with a bent or angle end on them, similar to a hemostat to be able to access from the gills? Walleye guys do a lot of unhooking via the gills.
Since we're on the topic, if this scenario presents it self and you can get in there and cut the hooks, say all three were buried in the throat, but you could separate them from the shank or whatever, odds of that fish surviving with that metal in there? My dog survived over 1000 porcupine quills stabbed in every inch of his body imaginable 3-4 years ago, and he still has quills working through his body to this day. I realize they're not metal, but dang. I've been extremely fortunate in that all my muskies have been relatively easily hooked and i haven't been though this ordeal.....yet. |
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Tools for unhooking deeply hooked fish.