This has been an interesting year. I was fishing soft plastics the other day and after a vigorous hook set I reeled in the most docile fish of my life. The 4/0 hook was in it's throat and had penetrated the upper potion towards its head. No life in the fish. I released it and it immediately went belly up. Wonder if I severed the spine or punctured its brain. First time anything like that has happened to me. Anybody had a similar experience?

Fish, like all living creatures have reactions to trauma. Some just get angry/defensive, some go into shock, some die. You very well could have severed something but it could be this fish just had an extreme reaction to the hookset and died.

I've seen more Smallies than I'd like to get tongue hooked and die. No damage to the gills/gut,/skull/etc. just a hook in the tongue and they die, just an odd reaction to what one would think isn't that traumatic of an injury/wound.

That our you need to lay off the Juice with your hooksets

Fish, like all living creatures have reactions to trauma. Some just get angry/defensive, some go into shock, some die. You very well could have severed something but it could be this fish just had an extreme reaction to the hookset and died.

I've seen more Smallies than I'd like to get tongue hooked and die. No damage to the gills/gut,/skull/etc. just a hook in the tongue and they die, just an odd reaction to what one would think isn't that traumatic of an injury/wound.

That our you need to lay off the Juice with your hooksets

Happened to me this year....I never hooked a smallmouth by the tongue till this year.It died on me as well....I found that strange.

Happened to me this year....I never hooked a smallmouth by the tongue till this year.It died on me as well....I found that strange.

I had the same thing happen last week end. Earlier in the year I hooked one in the lip. As I reeled it in it looked dead. I put it in the live well for a few minutes and it was just fine and splashing around like nothing happened.

I was working my buzzbait along the bank, 12" bass took it down and I set the hook. There was no fight. When I got him out of the water, the trailer hook went through his skull (like the Steve Martin arrow-in-the-head skit). Unfortunately, he was DOA. I felt bad.

Once when I was fishing with a friend with live bait we saw a BIG bass Swimming and suspending slowly in the water and kind of brought it over towards the shore and finally It went under a clump of grass and just sat there and we decided to try to scoop it up with a net and when I Waded in the water and did, it was pretty much dead, Its gills were a VERY light pink and it died immediately it was 16.5 inches and 3.50 pounds

I've set the hook pitching and had small fish bounce off the side of the boat and die, never had it happen no a hookset though.

A while back we were fishing from a friends private lake and transporting some bass to another friends pond. I was fishing a spinner bait, felt a hit, set the hook, then dead weight. The bass, ~12", fell off the bait when I lifted it up. Come to find out the hook had gone through the bass's eye and pulled the eye out when I lifted it up.

Thought she was going to die, or was already dead, but the bass is still alive and kickin in his pond.

NGaHB

This has been an interesting year. I was fishing soft plastics the other day and after a vigorous hook set I reeled in the most docile fish of my life. The 4/0 hook was in it's throat and had penetrated the upper potion towards its head. No life in the fish. I released it and it immediately went belly up. Wonder if I severed the spine or punctured its brain. First time anything like that has happened to me. Anybody had a similar experience?

From that description, it sounds entirely like a brainer. We used to see it a lot in trout, with a specific kind of hook.

Haha, i just went night fishing and reeled in a dead bloated catfish about an hour ago! Nasty little sucker, glad i had gloves on.