krueger

skeeter 7MM
I dont have any problem with your method of catch and realease, it actually sounds text book. All I'm saying is that one should not have to reset his/her drag setting if it is set properly to start with, regardless of species or size of the fish.

For instance, if a smaller fish musters a small run on your spinning reel with your drag set how you prefer then that fish will use X amount of energy and take X amount of line from the spool. Now imagine the same fish one of my rods, with my drag set to prevent my line from braking, if the fish mustered the exact same run. The fish still would have used X amount of energy but would not have taken any line. Thus you would have to fight the fish longer untill it was landed or my fish would have more energy when released.

From your post it seems that i didn't make clear that i'm not talking about horseing small fish in. I also diagree that small fish that are horsed in, swallow water into thier gullet which harms thier health. Everytime a fish strips off more line during the fight there is that much more line that one will have to fight the fish back for plus all the energy that the fish used up to muster that burst. So actually that would cause additional stress to the fish.

For bass, I basically lip them and take the hook out then put them back in the water.

As for walleye and trout, I play the fish to the boat, then usually without touching the fish unhook it with pliers. But if the fish is hooked deeper than the outside of the mouth. I grab the fish with my dry hands and squeeze it pretty hard and then drop it on the floor of my boat, then i step on its tail and rip on my line until the hook rips out. After that i throw the poor thing like a football as far as i can with as much trajectory as i can muster back in to the water. Thats my method of catch and release.














P.S. I just jokin bout the later part of my catch and release method.