my daughter & I were kayak fishing at Lake Arlington, yesterday.
we did really good, floating the shore using night crawlers.
we caught 3 nice bass & 2 giant blue gill.
catch & release.
1 bass swallowed the hook, past his gullet. i could not get the hook out, so i cut the line.
there was no blood & i didn't rip him up.
i feel horrible, probably should have kept him.
can the bass survive?

They have a better chance that way. The hook will rust. If they get their guts ripped out, or bleed out, they’re surely turtle food.

It happens. I feel bad when i fall asleep on a bite.

yeah
my daughter caught it
she was pumped
the bass basically just swallowed the worm & hook
we were targeting blue gills
so the hook was small

For sure it can survive! Largemouth are pretty hearty....cutting the hook and not trying to rip it out probably saved it. Last year I was prefishing for a tourney, hooked what felt like a good largemouth in some rock, it frayed my line fighting it and broke me off. A week and a half later I returned to that rock pile on tourney day and caught the same fish, still had the eyelet of my hook sticking out of it's gullet. It was fat, and also had a crayfish in it's gullet.....and decided to eat my bait again on tourney day so it was still feeding. They can pass those hooks or they rust out as someone else already mentioned and it'll be fine.....

There is a way to remove it so it doesn’t have a hook left in his gut. There’s a video takes two minutes to watch. It saved hundreds of Bass lives that I’ve caught..






Ps. disgusted when I watch all the MFL bass fisherman still taking it out thru the mouth and there’s no way you can turn the hook around to do it that way. You know they’re hurting the fish.

Thanks for sharing….I’ll bet most don’t know this trick to save a fish

Thanks

My fish are too small to go through the gills.

This method is simple and works really well. Steez, to your point, the bigger the fish, the better it works.

i feel better about the survival chances now

Turtles got to eat too.

The hooks made today barely rust the nanotechnology and other coatings applied almost make them totally rust proof... Just look at the hooks in your rod box... I've left Senkos rigged for months and when you go to use them again there's no sign of rust on them and they're loaded with salt... I've recovered a lot of crankbaits the last few years, the bait and hooks will be covered with slime and algae, take a toothbrush to them and they're as good as new... Dan

Ken Smith Fishing had a neat trick for removing deep hooked bass, you need a nipper type plier, looked like it worked very well.

Today's hook's do not rust like the old one did. They will stay in a fish's mouth for a very long time. I use the methods shown in the video plus I have a wire cutter so I can cut the hook and make it easier to get the hook out.

Here it is again.