Today I had something happen to me for the first time today…… I caught this beautiful 4 pound 1 ounce smallie and then I looked into his mouth to get the hook out and went “Oh BLEEP” 

 

I was fishing a weightless 4inch yum dinger Texas rigged and he had swallowed about 1/3-1/2 of my 3/0 ewg hook 

 

not gonna lie for a moment I was a bit panicked thinking I don’t know how to get this out….. how the heck am I gonna get this out….. and was sad that this beautiful fish could potentially die because of me

then ding ding ding I remembered I watched a video somewhere on the internet about what to do when you gut hook a fish 

 

You can imagine my nerves trying to attempt this going strictly off my memory of “a video I saw on the internet one time” 

so I got the fish to bend its head slightly to one side to flare open the gill plate and I go through there with my pliers and sure enough I was able to flip the hook over and pop it out actually quite easily 

 

and in the end I felt like my initial nerves were an overreaction….. but now I feel much more confident for if that were to happen again so overall a very good experience I’d say 

 

so thank you people of the internet for putting fish saving information out there….. and here is the fish unhooked and off to grow even bigger   

 

 

Stout smallie, and good on you for performing the life-saving surgery! 

I don’t even photograph the fish I hook like that.  It’s back into the water STAT. 

The hook removal through the gill is on the BR site.

Nice Smallie!

Tom

PS, got to remove the before releasing STAT?

Glad to hear that nice fish is still swimming.

 

 

 

There have been several posts on this topic. Apparently, the current science is that the fish has a better chance of survival if the line or hook is cut as close as possible to the point in the throat where the fish is hooked. This is about long-term survival. Please, someone correct me, if I am mistaken.

I believe the concern is damaging the Gill raker, the hook has already done damage and removing without causing more injury is better then snipping off the hook imo.

Tom

I saw this technique on Bass Resource many years ago and have used it more than once. It’s very satisfying to watch those fish swim away.

 

BTW great fish!!!!

22 hours ago, WRB said:

The hook removal through the gill is on the BR site.

Nice Smallie!

Tom

PS, got to remove the before releasing STAT?