About catch and release

Catch and release fishing is an increasingly popular practice among many anglers. It is quite common for fishers with a strong conservation commitment to release fish that they could legally keep.

Compliance with bag and size limits and various fishing closures also means many anglers, by law, return fish they have caught to the water.

Recent research has shown that most fish survive using current catch and release techniques with the main factors found to reduce survival being deep hooking and poor handling.

• Check out NSW DPI catch & release research.

Maximising fish survival

To maximise a fish's survival when practicing catch and release, it is important to follow a few simple rules:

• Use methods and rigs that increase the frequency of mouth hooked fish (rather than gut hooked), for example:
  • Target fish using artificial lures
  • Choose non-offset circle hooks when using bait
  • A guide to using circle hooks

• If the fish is hooked deeply, cut the line as close as possible to the fish’s mouth rather than removing the hook. Compared to removing swallowed hooks from bream and mulloway, simply cutting the line increased their short-term survival from 12% to more than 85%. Up to 76% of the released line-cut, gut-hooked bream then shed their hooks within around three weeks

• Minimise the length of time the fish is out of the water
• Ideally unhook fish while it is still in the water
• Try to remove hooks and release fish as quickly as possible
• The use of needle-nosed pliers or hook retrieving devices can greatly reduce time spent unhooking

• Remove hooks from mouth-hooked fish.
• Use fish-friendly landing nets with soft knotless mesh
• Avoid knotted landing nets which may damage the fish’s scales, skin, eyes and fins

• If live wells are used, maintain good water quality by using flow through, aerated system.
• Poorly designed live wells reduce fish survival – particularly silver trevally where survival dropped from 98% to 63%

Other practices to help increase survival

Other practices to help increase survival include:

• Use suitable tackle for the species that you are targeting and minimise the time spent to land the fish.

• Use barbless hooks or hooks with reduced barbs to make hook removal easier and minimise hook damage
• This can be achieved by squeezing barbs down with pliers, or filing down larger barbs

• Handle fish firmly and carefully. Avoid dropping fish onto the bottom of boats and other hard surfaces.
• Use wet hands or wet gloves when handling fish to minimise damage to its skin.
• A smooth, wet surface or vinyl covered foam is the most suitable surface to place fish on in order to remove hooks. Remember, many surfaces, especially metal, can become very hot in the sun.
• Do not hold fish by the gills or the eyes.
• Take care to revive fish upon release if they appear exhausted (struggling to hold themselves upright and/or unable to swim away)
• Gently hold or push the fish through the water so that it obtains a good flow of water over its gills. If there is any water current, hold the fish upright facing towards the current until it starts to show signs of recovery

• If you are going to take photos of your fish before release, support the fish properly.

Barotrauma

Fish may experience barotrauma when they are caught from deep water. Barotrauma results from the expansion of gases in the swim bladder and other organs when fish do not have time to adjust to the rapid changes in water pressure as they are pulled towards the surface. The affects and severity increase with depth of capture and susceptibility varies between species. Physical effects include inflated abdomen, bulging eyes, stomach pushed outside the mouth and distended intestines.

Consider releasing the fish using a specially designed release weight.

If you have thorough knowledge and experience of the technique, you may consider venting the fish to remove the trapped gases.

More information on these techniques is available under best practice at www.recfishingresearch.org/released_fish_survival.asp.

Further information

• Check out the results from research experiments aimed at assessing the survival of fish released by recreational anglers in NSW.

Fin fish results

Invertebrate results

(For addition to the existing I&I webpage on responsible fishing and catch and release following completion of research by Broadhurst et al.)

Maximising invertebrate survival

Studies carried out on recreationally caught-and-released mud crabs and eastern rock lobster have demonstrated that these species are particularly hardy. Most impact caused by catching these crustaceans is limited to physical damage; most of which occurs during handling.  While such damage did not cause any mortality in the research, it is important to acknowledge that wild crustaceans that lose appendages (especially claws/swimmers for mud crabs and antennae for lobsters) may be negatively impacted in terms of feeding, predator defence and reproduction. 

To minimise any of these impacts, the following fishing and handling guidelines are suggested:

Crabs

• Ensure any crabs that are caught in nets or traps are completely untangled before removing them from the gear (particularly when using netted designs); and
• Check hoop nets regularly and avoid 24-hour sets (to minimise damage to both crabs and gear) whenever possible.

Lobsters

• If possible, do not handle undersize lobsters (due to their tendency to lose appendages);
• Avoid contact with the antennae of lobsters during hand collection and removal from traps. Handle lobsters by the body to limit breakage of antennae; and
• Release unwanted lobsters at the capture locationand preferably underwater) to minimise predation.

Mats

• Catch and Release Mats available to recreational fishers