As I suspect many of you did, I grew up fishing small rivers and farm ponds. Fishing was fun but it was also a means of putting protein on the table. If you caught a fish, the species didn't matter much, you kept it, cleaned it and carried it home for Mom to cook for supper.

As I matured, and money became less of a problem, I still fished. Now it was more about the sport than the eating. Boats came and went, rods and reels became more expensive and better. Electronics came along (remember the first Humminbird flasher?) and became even more sophisticated. Fishing is now more akin to hunting than it is to fishing. None of the advances in gear and electronics are a bad thing, progress happens.

In the last few years, I have gravitated to fishing for landlocked Stripers and hybrids. I gotta confess, I really dig the feel of a large Striper at the other end of my line. I still keep a few hybrids for eating, good filets from those 3-5 pound fish! I try to release all the Stripers I catch unharmed.

Now to the point of this post.

Last week I was trying out a new technique for catching Stripers down deep in the water column. About 9PM, I hooked and boated a nice fish. 16.8 pounds on my digital scales. I had him out of the water for no more than 3 minutes and was confident he would survive. I could not get that fish to revive and swim away and I tried for a good 15 minutes. The death of that fish left me with a bad taste in my mouth and put a damper on the rest of the evening.

Nothing to add except I'm sorry that fish died and I will not stop fishing because of this incident, but it did leave me with a bad feeling that lingers still.

Nothing wrong with your way of doing things...but 3 minutes is a long time to be out of the water IMO.

Do you normally keep fish you intend to release out of the water that long? Seems pretty excessive to me...but I have never really paid attention to those things.

I've lost a lot of fish that way over the years. You fish enough and you will, too.

There are a lot of reasons you can have a fish out of the water for 3 mins besides taking a photo. You ever net a fish who starts the fight again after it's in the net? Ever tried to clear the hooks out of the net AND the fish while that's going on or after? You ever caught a big fish that swallowed the bait or a lure? It's like trying to perform surgery through a foot long piece of 3" PVC.

I've been known to put the fish back under water for a minute or two when I am having trouble getting the hook out, or dunk them if they're wrapped up and tangled in a net and/or had the hooks in the mess too.

I have, sometimes, had fish start thrashing around in the boat and had a hard time grabbing them to get them back in the water, but have never really paid attention to how long it took to get them back in the water.

[quote=lastofthebreedLast week I was trying out a new technique for catching Stripers down deep in the water column. [/quote]

How deep???

Yes. Most in a stressful situation cannot hold our breath for 3 minutes. Good on you though for graduating to catch an release. There's some satisfaction to be had in watching a yard long fish swim away.

Muffin: My bad. I should have posted this in the freshwater forum, just screwed up which seems to be more often the older I get. Anyhow, I am fishing a freshwater lake, and the fish are suspend in about 60 feet of water over 110-120 ft bottom. I am trolling big lures down to about 45 feet. The fish will move up to hit the lure.

T Inman: The net thingy was exactly what happened. I was trying to avoid 3 treble hooks and get the fish back in the water ASAP. Forrest Gump had it right "[bleep] happens".

In Alaska you cannot remove salmon from the water that you plan on releasing. On the Kenai River you had to keep them in the net while extracting a hook. I fished with 7/0 single hook set ups. Granted a big single hook is far easier to remove than trebles but the point being is once you got the hook out of the fish they swam away with hardly ever a problem. The biggest salmon I ever boated was right at 70 lbs (based on my best experienced guesstimate) and he swam off to create a new generation of TOADS. I still feel good about it.

I assume you kept the fish and made tasty meals. Just the the other day I made some striper burritos and it was very good stuff.

Congrats on the attempt to release it but I don't feel bad if I kill a fish and am forced to eat it.