Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Andersen
I should never rely totally on memory. Only 70% die after one minute & 38% after 30 seconds.
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You missed the most important part of that journal... The fish were fully exhausted by chasing them for 10 minutes until they refused to swim away... 12% of the fish that were never removed from the water died from this test just due to the exhaustion... This experiment was also done with fish that had recently undergone major surgery and that were handled multiple times during their recovery period... In short this is a worst case scenario and far from the average catch and release rates.
For example the 12% mortality of fish with no air time is three times that of the following test which actually included manual hooking and then playing a fish to a point where it could be handled. With triple the mortality rate it is clear how important it is to not overplay fish.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/vi...xt=ncfwrustaff
What I would like to see is a test done the way this experiment did it(actually hooking the fish then playing enough to handle) but with 30 and 60 second times out of water after catching. I don't doubt that there would be increased mortality but I highly doubt it would be close to your posted experiment. If it is the same 1/3 as the base result then that would mean around 87% of fish would survive at 30 seconds and 76% of fish out for 60 seconds which are numbers that to me could be realistic.
Last but not least, if you can't figure out a way to get a picture of a fish without having to have it out of the water for even 30 seconds then you are doing something wrong...
Good to know you have never taken a picture of any fish you have caught though...