We completed our 10th day of tagging dolphin yesterday. We have placed 110 tags on dolphin and one tag on a small wahoo. One of the unfortunate parts of fishing is the needless killing of billfish from the use of J hooks instead of circle hooks. We saw this dead sailfish in the water, brought in the boat and did a quick investigation of its mouth, gills and stomach. We discovered a size 3/0 J hook in its stomach. The fish still had color so it must have died just recently.
Marine Ventures funded a project in 2002 with John Graves at VIMS to investigate the mortality rates from both J and circle hooks on white marlin. The results were clear that post release death was around 30% for J hooks and less than 5% for circle hooks. While the US government is still struggling to implement a circle hook rule, anglers need to come to terms with their own choice of hooks. The more J hooks used, the fewer billfish. It is that simple. We each have to step up and assume responsibility for our fishing techniques. Regardless of the impact of longliners or other foreign fishing fleets, we each need to do our part to protect these awesome fish.
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We completed our 10th day of tagging dolphin yesterday. We have placed 110 tags on dolphin and one tag on a small wahoo. One of the unfortunate parts of fishing is the needless killing of billfish from the use of J hooks instead of circle hooks. We saw this dead sailfish in the water, brought in the boat and did a quick investigation of its mouth, gills and stomach. We discovered a size 3/0 J hook in its stomach. The fish still had color so it must have died just recently.
Marine Ventures funded a project in 2002 with John Graves at VIMS to investigate the mortality rates from both J and circle hooks on white marlin. The results were clear that post release death was around 30% for J hooks and less than 5% for circle hooks. While the US government is still struggling to implement a circle hook rule, anglers need to come to terms with their own choice of hooks. The more J hooks used, the fewer billfish. It is that simple. We each have to step up and assume responsibility for our fishing techniques. Regardless of the impact of longliners or other foreign fishing fleets, we each need to do our part to protect these awesome fish.Panel
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