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Posts: 61
Location: Morgantown, WV | My buddy had a fish that couldn’t be released last year. It seemed bloated and kept resurfacing. We were jigging in about 20 FOW, maybe 25. I stumbled across an article on using a fish descender for releasing fish caught from very deep water. I decided to make one and I carried it in my boat for the past year. I had the opportunity to use it last week.
I jigged up a fat 44” fish from maybe 15-18 FOW. It was unhooked with minimal trauma-clipped one hook out with knipex very easily. The fish was in the water in the net the whole time I was unhooking it. I took a quick measurement and photo. Time out of the water was probably 30 seconds. It swam off normally. I saw it resurface about 5 minutes later. It swam back down, only to resurface again a few minutes later. I pulled up, netted it and got out the fish descender. Then I repositioned the boat over the deepest available water—20 feet. I inserted the wire through the thin skin adjacent to the mandible and sent her down 20 feet. I shook the wire free with a couple shakes of the rope, pulled the anchor up and she was gone. I stayed in the area for a good while and didn’t see her again. This is far from definitive proof of survival but I am hopeful that it is a good technique. I think it can help the fish regain the proper bouyancy. Coming up less than twenty feet shouldn’t cause barotrauma but for whatever reason these fish do seem to get bloated easily, even when caught from shallow water.
Edited by Stranger2bluewater 12/14/2018 6:39 PM
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| burping, I believe is the technique. Never had the need so cant say for sure. 15-18 ft seems fairly shallow for such trauma, but applaud your efforts nonetheless. |
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Posts: 61
Location: Morgantown, WV | We tried to do that several times on the fish from last year. I didn’t try it on this one but I think the deep release probably did the same thing albeit more profoundly.
Edited by Stranger2bluewater 12/14/2018 7:38 PM
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Posts: 2327
Location: Chisholm, MN | I’ve had this happen a few times from shallow water. I’d like to try this method. |
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Posts: 612
| As for the fish developing bladder issues shouldn't be an issue at only (20 to 25)'. That's not deep water. We've got Musky down > 60' chasing deeper perch schools. Released them w/o problems.
Have seen a few L. Trout w bladder issues but they were caught > 100' down.The fish might have had other issues, weak from previously being caught, disease, who knows. Seen many hungry fish with issues (often don't know why). All I can do is to use quick release techniques and make sure I grab em by the jaw. |
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Posts: 61
Location: Morgantown, WV | I agree with you. The technique is widely used for very deep water. I don’t understand why this should be the case. It doesn’t happen very often but for some reason these fish seem to occasionally have a problem regulating their buoyancy after being caught. |
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Posts: 2327
Location: Chisholm, MN | I’ve had at least 6 fish make it a few feet down and pop up over and over again. Summer and fall. They are strong enough to stay up right and swim around and try to get down but still pop back up. Some of these fish never went deeper than 5 feet down from strike to fight to net. I’m a stickler about having fish out of water for long too. 15 seconds at most. I know this has been discussed here before but I think I’ll try this method next season if it happens again. I feel like it would work. For the fish that this has happened to so far I just make sure they are left in shallow water close to shore so hopefully they recover and don’t get run over. |
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| I see fish do this all the time when releasing them. Many times the fish were caught only in like 15 feet of water. I once made a homemade fish descender with an 8 ounce weight and about a 3 foot fluorocarbon trolling leader wrapped around the belly of the fish. Let it go down slow, the fish swam out of the loop and stayed down in deeper cold water to never pop to the surface again. Only time I tried that though with any success. All the other times I just watch the fish closely when its swimming along the surface and eventually they will pop down deep to be never seen again. I make sure the fish doesn't get hit by other boats or get harassed by people on the lake. Sad story I heard about a huge muskie that was found swimming along the surface upright like this after being released. The fisherman who caught it didn't watch out for the fish or see that it resurfaced. Well, these people that saw it decided to grab the fish and pass it around on their dock for pictures. They then released it after their photo session which by that time gave the fish little chance of survival. I would say I water release about 90% of the fish I catch which means I rarely take a fish out of the water.
Edited by Baby Mallard 12/15/2018 10:34 PM
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Posts: 572
| Marc Thorpe is very knowledgeable on this topic. Do a search and you should find more info and video(s). |
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Posts: 61
Location: Morgantown, WV | Thanks. Watched Thorpe’s YouTube video on musky handling and swim bladder issues. Great video. He confirmed that swim bladder issues happen even when muskie are caught from shallow water. He also said that it is more common when fishing in current, which I was in both cases. |
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Posts: 1036
| I had a few tough releases. Jigging 20-25 fow. Catch a fish and it just won't dive. Felt terrible. Picked up the fish, took them to shallow water, shaded and released them there. From what I could tell the fish made it, but still, felt terrible.
So, now when I jig, when I catch a fish, I bring it to the surface, then I usually hit free spool and let her swim down...slowly, then I bring the fish back up...slowly. I've done this like a half dozen times, always on fish less than 44 inches, and I've always seen bubbles when going down and coming back up the second time. All the releases have been outstanding, with the fish diving right away.
So...maybe try that sometime. I think it would take a lot of discipline to do that on a huge fish, as the goal is to just get it into the net, but on those other fish? Try that out. Push the button, free spool them down...slowly, then re-engage and bring them up slowly. Look for bubbles. Most of the steam/fight leaves the fish on that first pull up to the surface.... |
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI | The depth of the water doesn't make a difference at all. Muskies have the ability, unlike many fish, to exchange gasses in their swim bladder. This helps them when coming up from deep water as they shouldn't experience barotrauma like most fish. However, it seems sometimes their brain doesn't work right and they don't burp gasses as they should. This ability to exchange gasses also seems to allow gasses to be forced into the swim bladder causing a fish that was caught in shallow water to experience a barotrauma like problem.
I've used a fish descender many times over the years and it works. There's no need to make it complicated at all. A section of bucktail wire formed into a clip with a line tie and a snap to hold a 6oz weight. Attach descender to rod, attach to fish, drop them down to 15-20' or bottom if shallower. Give the fish a minute to regain it's strength. The fish will try to pull away, pull back on the fish until the wire comes free .
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI | Had a question on the amount of weight and just wanted to clarify here on the original thread. It doesn't matter what size the fish is, once they are back in the water they're weightless. 6oz takes them down quickly. As far as when I use the descender, I give a fish one chance to swim down on their own. In my experience, more than once and it seems they get tired really fast. Working with them on the surface or trying to force them to swim down seems to exponentially prolong the recovery period. I used to wait for them to recover and burp on their own and it just seemed like way too much handling time. The descender is quick and easy and has worked 100% of the time, I've never had a fish come back to the surface after using the descender.
Edited by Will Schultz 12/17/2018 11:32 AM
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Posts: 61
Location: Morgantown, WV | One of the sources I read suggested that a large amount of weight was necessary. I think Will Shultz is right in that not much weight is actually required. The fish is too buoyant but just barely. I’m going to revise my device a little (something simple that can be attached to a rod and reel is probably ideal). Based on what I’ve learned here, I think the descender should probably be one of the standard release tools. |
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Posts: 152
| Light bulb idea!!!! Market one. Put muskie decal on it and sell it for $40 |
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| I'm thinking about making one attached to a short ice fishing rod/reel I never use anymore. |
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