To break or not to break-that is the question

[fishermandan420]

today i had a little quandry. i fouled up a nasty tank buck brown and as soon as i saw he wasnt legit i popped him. didnt like leaving the hook in him but i didnt wanna tire him out too bad as im pretty sure it was the same one i saw landed in that pool 30 min before
i never really foul up bows, and i pop nooks cuz theyre on the final march and they like jewelry.

what would you do? land it and remove the hook or pop him?
(ps if you land a big browny with an eggyolk bead pinned to his right pelvic fin please take it out)

 

[rocheleauc]

Personally I'd break it off. Fighting a foul hooked fish really stresses it out and it will definitely take longer to land it than if it was hooked in the mouth. I've foul hooked a few bows this year and always break them off once I'm sure it's not in the mouth. Majority of the time I get the hook back.

 

[Captain Barty]

Break it off. Especially if your fishing around other people. Guys get pissed...

 

[christotheashto]

yup. break it off

 

[fishernick]

break it, the hook will disintegrate within a week or 2.

 

[schnip]

agreed on the break off--however put a hook in some water in a cup---that is more like a year...disintegrate

 

[fishernick]

i was always under the impression that it would be a few weeks. a hook dissolving in a cup of water is a lot different then a hook in a fishes mouth, fin, etc which is put through a lot more movement, hook erodes because of the current of the river, also the fish is trying to dislodge it, ever seen a hooked salmon dive and start trashing its head into the bottom of the river trying to get the hook out?

taken from the mnr factsheet for catch and release(pdf format so i cant copy and paste but...)

"a small hook, even in the throat of a fish, will dissolve in a few days and the fish will be fine"

im sure the bigger and stronger the hook the longer it will take but you get the point. also im sure there are a lot of variables that could change the amount of time but more of a general rule for me.

 

[NADO]

I disagree with the hook dissolving argument which is why im also unsure what to do in this scenario as well. I read an article in a fishing magazine where they did trials with bass and some of the hooks used to fish bass. These hooks didnt dissolve after a 5 year period and the point of the article was that if a bass is deeply hooked than do what you can to get that big offset hook out at all costs because the hook isnt going anywhere. Think about it, in what world does metal erode and dissolve within a few weeks??

My stance on the situation is if you are using a small hook like a size 8+ then just break it off. If you are throwing a spinner or a spoon I think you should definately do what you can to land the fish as quickly as possible and remove the hook. Fight the fish way harder than you normally would and try to land the fish as quickly as possible. Yes in alot of cases they will be able to rub the lure off on the rocks, but in alot of cases they wont and that lure will cause problems for the fish down the road.

I look at it more from the perspective of what is best for the fish rather than how will this make me look to the other anglers fishing the pool. Small salmon egg hook - break it off. Big hook/lure - land the fish and remove the hook.

I also agree with leaky waders that if it is a foul hooked salmon then break it off no matter what. They only have a few weeks left to live anyways so it wont be as big of a deal to have a little extra jewelry.

 

[schnip]

hook rusting or any metal for that matter is basically oxydization(spelling?) it will surely rust faster in a river as there is more flow of oxygen however one the surface layer is rusted---it takkes forever for it to actually decay--look at ship wrecks--in cold water they last for 100s of years

 

[hightechdecks]

break it off... next guy i see taking up 25 min of my time fighting a snagged fish is getting a punch in the balls

 

[rocheleauc]

break it off... next guy i see taking up 25 min of my time fighting a snagged fish is getting a punch in the balls

LOL :mrgreen:

 

[NADO]

lol who takes 25 min to fight a fish? never had a fish on my line for more than 5 min.

 

[DEVIN]

break it off... next guy i see taking up 25 min of my time fighting a snagged fish is getting a punch in the balls

I hear that!

 

[Equinox]

i was always under the impression that it would be a few weeks. a hook dissolving in a cup of water is a lot different then a hook in a fishes mouth, fin, etc which is put through a lot more movement, hook erodes because of the current of the river, also the fish is trying to dislodge it, ever seen a hooked salmon dive and start trashing its head into the bottom of the river trying to get the hook out?

taken from the mnr factsheet for catch and release(pdf format so i cant copy and paste but...)

"a small hook, even in the throat of a fish, will dissolve in a few days and the fish will be fine"

im sure the bigger and stronger the hook the longer it will take but you get the point. also im sure there are a lot of variables that could change the amount of time but more of a general rule for me.

always thought it was only mouth hooked hooks that dissolved because of the enzymes in the mouth??

 

[free reign]

break it off... next guy i see taking up 25 min of my time fighting a snagged fish is getting a punch in the balls

No offence I agree but someone may not realize it is foul hooked and what if a guy UFC ur ass after u punch him in the balls .hhahahahahahahaha

 

[morrisbp]

always thought it was only mouth hooked hooks that dissolved because of the enzymes in the mouth??

That must be some enzymes then, to dissolve steel. From chem class what I can remember, rust is really, bare with me, Fe2O3 or iron oxide, this applies to iron only. But anyhow the oxygen levels in the stream react with iron to form the oxidized form. The oxidized form has weak intermolecular forces and tends to fake off, thus why urn rusting is so bad. I can summarize that water left in a cup has a limited amount of oxygen so when u do that test, the hook would start to break down then it would stop because all of the oxygen was used up. However in a steam there is an abundant form of oxygen to the process is not limited. Plus there is movement of the molecules in the stream which would speed up the rate of reaction. More collisions of particles=more reaction. This the hook would break down much faster then when done in a control test. I know hooks are mostly steel alloys not pure iron but for the sake of explaining its a bit easier that way. This was a really basic summary but bottom line is the hook will dissolve quite fast in the fishes mouth.