Jul 8, 4:47 PM

Anglers must observe correct release techniques

BY BYRON STOUT
FLORIDA TODAY

All too often, after the thrill of victory, an angler experiences the agony of watching a tarpon sink like a silver dollar to a grisly end with the crabs. Or that snook that fought so valiantly ends up drifting belly-up into the sunset.

With catch-and-release season -- much of it mandatory -- now upon us, proper release techniques can be vital to the continued health of many fisheries.

For instance, the latest estimate of the number of snook killed on Florida's Gulf Coast by accident, after being released "alive," amounts to 21 percent of the total harvest of 72,500 fish. And that calculation is with a release death rate of only 2.13 percent -- the number achieved by fishery biologists doing everything they could to reduce stress on the fish they caught.

"You know the reality could only be worse," said Ron Taylor, the Florida Marine Research Institute scientist who led the state release mortality study.

Taylor notes an important no-no that has increased in importance with the popularity of fish-gripping hand scales like the BogaGrip.

When held upright by the lower lip -- with a fish-gripping tool or by hand -- the ligaments and muscles in a large fish's throat area called the isthmus can rupture. Taylor notes that a damaged isthmus -- the very narrow connection between the gills -- can lead to failure of a fish's gill functions and suffocation; or in the case of suction-feeding fish like snook, the inability to pop open its jaws, and slow death by starvation.

Glenda Kelley, a biologist with the International Game Fish Association, is spreading word of another danger from holding large fish vertically for weighing. The danger was exposed by Australian biologist Alf Hogan, who was collecting adult barramundi -- close relative of the common snook -- for a hatchery experiment.

Hogan weighed fish by hanging them vertically before putting them in a holding pen. Within four days, 50 of them had died.

X-rays revealed the barramundi had suffered measurable stretching between vertebrae. A subsequent repeat of the experiment using a sling scale, by which the body of the fish was fully supported, resulted in no deaths.

Hogan's recommendation for recreational anglers is simple -- measure fish instead of weighing them.

Tarpon may suffer the most abuse of any fish. Souvenir scales ripped from their bodies can lead to long-term infections, if they survive the respiratory and gravitational stresses of being hauled aboard for lengthy picture-taking sessions.

Kelley recommends anglers who want to take a fish from the water should follow this practice: To understand what the fish is experiencing, the angler should try holding his breath for the full time the fish is out of its element. Or as Taylor recommends -- think of putting a plastic bag over the head of a marathon runner, right after he crosses the finish line.

Stout is an outdoors columnist for the Fort Myers News-Press.