A River Never Sleeps

By Harvey Thommasen, with Photography by Nick Didlick

After a few false casts I direct my streamer straight out across the current, aiming to let it ride down and sweep across the tail of the pool. But moments after the fly settles, before it has had time to sink, a fish jumps, and takes it on its way back into the water. I am so startled I hesitate before striking, and hook up perfectly. I never tire when I see this kind of take. By the deep bottom hugging run, and vigorous head shaking I correctly guess it’s a sea-run Dolly Varden. It puts up a powerful but short fight, barely getting into the backing, and after a few minutes I easily release the barbless hook from the corner of its jaw.

On the next cast, a second fish comes, just as aggressively if not with such a spectacular rise....and on the third cast, I take another. And on it goes, until I have hooked and released five beautiful sea-run Dollies ranging from 30 to 50 cm in length. I change to a #8 Orange Caddis dry fly, and quickly cast it down towards where the fish are holding in an apparent school. A good sized char rips across the water to hit it close to the shore. I lift the rod tip too fast and lose the fish. At one time I would have fished and fished until my hands hurt from line burns. But today, I reel in, look wonderingly at the river for a moment - and head home. Five fish is enough. And besides, with the fish striking so hard, and so freely, I realize that if I keep casting I will catch many more....and sooner or later I will hook one so deeply it will be mortally wounded. To practice catch and release until you have killed more than your allowed limit doesn’t make much sense.

I practice catch and release not because I don’t like to eat fresh fish, but because salmon and sea-trout populations are depressed. I know there are too many people killing fish and too few fish to go around. To have both healthy fish populations and quality fishing, most of us have to let most of our catch go.

We do that willingly. But how many of us will stop fishing on those extraordinary days, when the fish seem to be throwing themselves at you?

A lot of people - particularly bait and hardware fishermen - do not like catch-and-release regulations. They argue that most fish die after they have been released, so it is better to kill everything you catch, rather than waste it. It is clear to me that people who feel that way are really just looking for a way to justify killing fish. They want to take them home and show them off and perhaps even eat them. But I know that catch-and-release does work, because I’ve released distinctively marked trout, and later in the season caught the same fish again. But a fish has to be released properly if it is to survive. That includes minimizing the length of time you play the fish, keeping it in the water as much as possible, not squeezing the fish while you hold it, not touching the gills, and using barbless hooks that can quickly be pulled free. If you use bait, it is almost certain that you will hook the fish deep in the throat.

Playing a fish for a long time can cause lactic acid to build up in the blood, which can be fatal hours or even days after a fish has been released. In one study 8% of 101 fish hooked on flies and lures and played to exhaustion died within a few hours of release. In another study, 20% of rainbow trout played to exhaustion and released were dead by day three; 80% died by day five, and 87% died by day ten. Lactic acid does not increase significantly in blood when rainbow trout are played for two or three minutes - but fish played four or more minutes do have significantly higher levels.

To minimize lactic acid buildup,you should attempt to land fish within five minutes of hookup. Fish should never be played to exhaustion. The best way to do this is to use leader with test strength that exceeds the fish you plan to catch. If you are going after cutthroat trout and resident rainbow trout use seven to eight pound test leader, if you can. That’s not always possible, especially in clear streams, on sunny days, where fish see a lot of angler traffic.

If you are going after steelhead and coho use 15 to 20 pound test leader. Again, that can be a problem if the fish are leader shy, but if they are fresh in from the sea chances are they have never seen fishing line before. You’d be surprised how thick a leader you can use without spooking them.
With a heavy leader, fish can be literally dragged in - although you have to be careful you don’t shatter your rod. Some will argue that “putting the rod” to the fish isn’t very sporting, and that it detracts from the experience. But I get my thrill by getting the fish to hit, and then releasing it knowing it is unharmed.

Fish suffocate when out of water. Brain damage occurs when fish have been out of water for more than three or four minutes. If you want to hold your catch up for the camera, get everything set, lift the fish just above the surface, look up at the photographer - and then get the trout back in the water.

Unless you plan to kill the fish there is no need to drag it onto the shore where it can scratch its skin, and injure internal organs flapping around on rocks.

Obviously, hooks should be removed as quickly and gently as possible. Barbless hooks are far easier to remove than barbed hooks, they hook fish better than barbed hooks, and they can be plucked from coats, hats - and human skin - without much trouble. There’s really no excuse for anyone to have a barbed hook on their line. Squeeze the barb down with a pair of pliers or forceps.
If you land your fish quickly and release it carefully, it stands a better than 95% chance of survival. Fish hooked in the mouth or jaw rarely, if ever, die. Most of the fish that die, die because they have been hooked in vital organs. When you hook a fish in the gills, esophagus, tongue or eyes, it still stands a 60% chance of surviving.

Studies have found that flies penetrate critical areas less than 10 % of the time. In contrast bait fishing results in hooking in critical areas roughly 50% of the time. Bait fishing discriminates against fish because it kills about 25% of those released as opposed to about 5% for flies and lures.

If a fish is hooked deeply in the mouth, and the fish is bleeding profusely, I believe it is best to keep the fish. If regulations state one cannot keep any fish, the best thing to do is cut the tippet and leave the hook rather than try to remove it. Studies show that 7% to 37% of deeply hooked fish die if hooks are left in the fish, while 59% to 97% die if the hooks are removed. Amazingly gastric juices released by fish, plus natural corrosion, will dissolve a deeply embedded hook within three months. Plain steel hooks corrode faster than bronzed or stainless steel so the conscientious angler may want to select this type of hook to make his or her flies on. One should not forget that wild trout do have substantial recuperative powers and they do survive some horrendous injuries. I have caught many fish that had seal and otter bites, missing eyes, misshapen jaws, deformed fins.
Unfortunately few people follow the rules of proper catch-and-release. I have observed anglers kicking fish onto sandy banks. I have observed anglers playing fish for 20 minutes or more before releasing them. I have observed anglers holding fish out of water for long periods of times while photographs are being taken. I have observed anglers recklessly ripping out barbed hooks. And I frequently observe anglers catching and releasing fish after they have been caught on roe or some other kind of bait.

Catch-and-release regulations have proved successful wherever they have been properly followed. Trout populations increase four to ten times in abundance, the number of fish greater than 30-33 cm (12 to 13 inches) long increases by as much as 25%, and fishing quality improves accordingly. Even though catch-and-release is arguably the best way recreational anglers can continue to fish for salmon and sea-run trout, it is not always a popular option.

A friend scolded me one day as I released a fresh coho: "Fish were not put on earth for us to just have nothing but fun, they were put there to eat!"

But if we all killed a few more fish, we’d eat them right into oblivion.

There are over 75 million fishermen in North America, with over 5 million fishermen in Canada. The majority of these would like to eat "just one". Do the math, then think about the onslaught that could be released by that recreational fishing army.

Although there are huge populations of some fish, there are far fewer adult steelhead, sea-run cutthroat, and a sea-run dolly varden in Canada, than there are Canadian anglers. If steelhead, cutthroat, and dolly varden are to survive into the future, fisheries managers will have to increasingly adopt policies that give value to having 'living' fish, and they must stop supporting policies that lead to the slaughter and eventually extinction of local fish stocks.

Inefficient methods of catching fish (fly fishing) should be encouraged, and efficient methods of catching fish (bait and nets) should be discouraged.

Many will argue that this is elitist. And timid fisheries managers will shy away from doing what is right, not only for nature, but for fishermen.

We can all learn to fly fish, but nobody can learn how to catch fish when a run has been wiped out.

It’s been said before and it’s worth repeating. There is no need to kill the very thing which adds meaning to our sport - the fish.