Wet Hands, Short Fight: A Release Checklist

Letting a fish go is not the same as letting it live. A trout that swims off strongly can still die hours later from exhaustion, a torn gill or skin stripped of its protective slime. The encouraging part is that almost everything that decides the outcome is in the angler’s hands: how long the fight lasts, how warm the water is, how long the fish spends in the air and how it is held. Four things, all of them habits.

Before the cast

• Crush the barb. Flatten it with forceps until the fly slides out of a cotton shirt without snagging. Keep a steady bend in the rod and you will lose very few fish, and unhooking takes a second instead of a struggle.
• Use tippet strong enough to end the fight quickly. Dropping to 7X (0.10 mm) to fool a fish usually means playing it to exhaustion. For trout of 30–40 cm, 5X (0.15 mm) is a sensible floor and 4X (0.18 mm) is better in fast water or weed.
• Carry a rubber-mesh net. Knotless rubber does not scrape slime or split fins the way knotted nylon does, and hooks do not tangle in it. Choose a bag deep enough for the fish to lie curved, under water, while you sort yourself out.
• Keep forceps on a cord. If you have to search your pockets for them, the fish is waiting.
• Take the water temperature. A small stream thermometer costs less than three flies and settles the question that matters most.

The twenty-degree rule

Warm water holds less oxygen at the very moment a hard-fought fish needs more of it. Fully saturated fresh water carries about 11.3 milligrams of oxygen per litre at 10°C and only about 9.1 at 20°C, and a slow, weedy summer river is often well short of saturated by late afternoon. For trout and grayling, treat 18°C (64°F) as the point to fish only in the cool of the morning, and 20°C (68°F) as the point to stop altogether. Grayling are even less tolerant than trout.

Water temperature	What to do
Below 15°C (59°F)	Fish normally, with ordinary care. In hard frost, keep fish in the water; gills and eyes suffer in freezing air.
15–17°C (59–63°F)	Shorten fights, unhook in the net, no photographs out of the water.
18–19°C (64–66°F)	Early morning only. Step up one tippet size. Stop by late morning.
20°C (68°F) and above	Do not fish for trout or grayling. Come back at dawn after a cool night, or wait for rain.

With the fish in the net

Play the fish with side strain and get its head up as soon as you can; a fight that runs past a minute or two on a small river is usually a sign of tippet that is too fine. Then work through the same sequence every time, until it needs no thought.

1. Net the fish head first and lower the rim so that it lies in the water, in the bag, facing upstream. Tuck the rod under your arm.
2. Wet both hands before you touch it. Dry skin, gloves and towels lift the mucus that protects a fish from fungus and infection.
3. Hold it lightly under the belly and around the wrist of the tail. Never squeeze, and never put fingers under the gill covers. The heart sits low in the throat, just behind the gills, exactly where a nervous grip closes.
4. Grip the hook bend with forceps and back it out along the path it went in. With a flattened barb this is one small push.
5. If you lift the fish at all, keep it within a hand’s width of the surface and under ten seconds of air. Never lay it on gravel, grass or snow.
6. Lower it back into the net and let it settle before you release it.

A quick, wet, careful release gives a fish a very good chance. A long fight in warm water and a dry-handed photograph does not.

When the hook is deep

If the fly is far back in the throat or caught in a gill arch, do not dig for it. Cut the tippet as close to the hook as you can and let the fish go. A small barbless hook is often shed or rusts away, while a minute of probing among the gill filaments is frequently fatal. A fish that is bleeding steadily from the gills is the one case where, if the rules of the water allow you to keep it, a quick and humane dispatch is kinder than a release.

Letting go

Hold the fish upright in gentle, clean current, facing upstream, in water deep enough to cover its back. Avoid the silt you have just kicked up with your boots. Do not pump it back and forth; water pushed backwards over the gills does nothing useful. Simply support it and wait. When it has its balance and its gill covers are working steadily, it will kick out of your hands by itself. Watch it to cover. If it turns on its side, bring it back and give it longer. Then sit for a minute yourself. You both need it.

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