As a known brookie-derricker/tosser I feel the need to address this (quickly, then moving on to stay on topic). My belief is that trout, especially in overpopulated high gradient brookie streams, work very hard to earn their spots on the stream. Putting them back anywhere other than EXACTLY where you found them causes them to work hard to get back to their lie. Especially when there's a small waterfall between you and where you caught the fish, or where there are other fish that they will have to now chase out of their spot. Given the lack of food in these streams, that energy spent is a big deal. It's a much bigger deal to a trout than the force of impact on water. Aren't these the same fish that repeatedly try to jump falls on their spawning runs and launch headfirst into rocks to snatch stoneflies and other emerging bugs? Not that we shouldn't treat them as best we can, but they are not made of glass. They thrive in a harsh environment where other fish fail to live at all.
Slime removal via hands or dry ground, squeezing the guts, overplaying and too much time out of water are really bad for fish. I'm guilty of the dry hands sometimes and need to be better about that. But a few seconds of air time and a splash landing, to save the trout the effort of swimming back up a waterfall to its home, I guarantee has zero negative impact on a trout. We're already stressing the fish just by catching it, why make it worse by releasing it away from its home?
On Thursday, December 31, 2015 at 5:01:43 PM UTC-5, Bob Smith wrote:
> Not a resolution but a wish for 2016. That the people who post pictures and videos here of their fish lying in muddy water, on rocks, or muddy water/rocks/gravel/grass, or being derricked out of the water and then lobbed back in to the water like a softball 10-30 feet (mostly those 4" brookies with flies as big as they are it seems)
> will learn to respect the sport, respect their catch and show thought and care in handling them.
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