I have some long side cutters that I use to cut the hook below the eyelet then use my needle nose to pull out the remaining piece. To me its just easier to tie on a new hook and much safer for the fish.

I use the braided line trick.


Just kidding.......

Did you post this over on fishingtx?

I keep a bottle in my boat. Throwback of course. Made with real sugar. Fish don't need the toxic poison that is GMO High Fructose Corn Syrup either.

A lot of new hook take a long time to dissolve and if it obstructs the bass from eating he will die. The hook through gill thing works great but some fish will still die

I don't think the acid in a bass' stomach is strong enough to disolve steel. If we were to eat a penny it's coming out the other end. If I hook one deep and the point has punched through I'll crimp the barb, cut my line and slide it out, or cut the hook. I'd rather lose a hook then kill a bass.

I think this is a story told to children to make them feel better about deep hooking a fish.

If he swallows the hook, just pour the Mountain Dew down his throat. That crud will melt anything.

I had a partner insist on the mountain dew trick. He poured it down the throat of a 2lb spot that I caught before I even knew what he was doing. The fish died instantly! I thought it stood a chance before. After it got "dew"d, it was thrown in the livewell and was an instant floater.

Ironically, it turned as bright yellow in less than an hour!

Most of these hooks aren't way down in the fish's digestive tract so I don't think they're going to dissolve very fast.

Everybody has found old lures and snagged hooks that are in fair condition after years in the water.

I think this must be some old myth from salt water. A steel hook might rust pretty fast in salt solution but in fresh water it is much better to follow the previous advise on hook removing.

Oh by the way if somebody sees a black spook in a fishs mouth I believe it's probably mine.

working the live release boat at Lake Fork we don't leave hooks in the bass.

Like everyone had said here they end up coming out through the anuis or stomach.

Years ago they rusted out but todays hooks just don't.

Our volunteers are taught to remove the hooks if possible.

Hah! I think I found that lure you lost! LOL

We caught a small mouth on lbj in bass champs that had actually passed the eye of a hook<the point had come out his side.It came right out im sure he was the happiest fish to take a ride in a live well ever lol. Was very healthy i dont see any problem with just cutting the line.

Caught a fish in practice at Oneida lake , had to cut the line. Caught the same fish a week later in the tourney, it had the hook hanging out of it,s poop hole just the eye remaining. Popped the hook out and tossed it in the live well. Could not believe it passed thru like that.

Not conjecture, not a best guess, science. Many years ago when as the staff biologist I had helped start up a pay to fish bass club in Danbury, called "The Lake of Danbury," I needed to know more about this deep hook issue.

The bass were our primary resource and I was loathe to have any more of them die from C&R fishing we did than had to. And that deep hook question, especially a single worm hook swallowed deep into the stomach and hooked into it, barb and all.

So I designed and set up a real world study. Real fishermen, real fish in a real fishery. The only fish tnaks were those holding the test subjects.

I set up boats with live wells and told my fishermen to one trip, remove all the deep set hooks, put the fish in the well, and transfer them to a holding facility by the dock at the end of the day. Two tanks, one for "hook removed" and another for "hook left inside." The next trip the same fisherman would cut off and leave in the fish all deep hooks, put the fish in the well and transfer to the holding area to the "hook inside" tank.

I'd leave the fish there until they died or a week, whichever came first and logged results every which way (fish in, fish dead, fish out, observations,etc.)
I did this for several weeks in early summer with several fishermen and many fish.

I learned a lot. First and foremost, my results showed that approximately 80% of deeply hooked bass that the fishermen carefully as they could removed the hook from, died.

Alternatively, ablout 80% of the fish that the hook was left inside the fish, were still alive and (usually) healthy after a week.

Now here is the weird part.....like many I figure the hook rusted out of the fish. Not even. We would find the hooks, in good shape and ready to use again in most cases, lying on the bottom of the tank that held the "hook inside" fish."

So I started watching these fish three or four times a day, catching some and looking for the hook and what was going on in that fish. Trying to figure out why the hooks were coming out and how.

Almost every hook caused the place where it was embedded to fester up. The spot would be all festered and rotted, and the hook would just fall out with no more good flesh or bone to hold it in there. Then the spot would heal right up, many tmes to the point of never knowing there was ever a hook in there in the first place.

ever since I have insgtructed my fihsing club members (LOD long closed now) at another club I have, to cut the hook off and leave it in the fish if they cannot easily extract it. Now I do also have them fish with barbless hooks that are likley to be taken in deeply, so removal is usually easily done.