[little bubba]

I know that this has been covered many times on this board, but I would like to bring it up again. Today I was fishing at the NNReef. There was a boat off my port side that was catching 3 fish to my one. Problem was he was catching fish that were two small to keep. Everytime they would bring a fish on board it would take several minutes to get the hook out of the fish. It was clear to see that he was using J-hooks. You could see that the fish was gut hooked. I personally counted 9 fish that he released that were dead. Floating on top of the water. What a waste. From his actions and expressions I really don't think this bother this fellow one bit. I don't know what could have been done, but I was rather flustered. He could have caught just as many if he had used circle hooks and most would have been released with minimal damage.
Bubba[angel][angel]

 

[capt. dave]

I use J hooks on Aces Up. The reason is that most customer anglers don't know how to handle circle hooks properly. Most average persons make reaction hook sets when they get bites which jerk the circle hooks out of the fish's mouthes. I use fairly small hooks like no. 1 short shanks and what I do is crush the barbs down so the it is easier to unhook the fish with my dehooker. Unless we are going to keep the fish it is out of the water for about two to three seconds while I unhook it. We do not loose many fish because of not having a bard. If it looks like the fish is hooked too deep, I cut the leader and tie on another hook.

The angler you reported was not a sportsman.