Should have gone fishing instead, but this morning I'm sitting in the back yard with a cup of coffee and looking at my fish net hanging up drying on a gatepost. It's been up there for a week or so since I soaked it all day in soapy water to get rid of the fish smell. I bought it several years ago when I became aware that my old style net (mono nylon net on an aluminum frame) was no longer recommended because it is considered hard on the fish, and these new ones, made of a soft fabric are now the accepted style. They look kinda cool too.
Now I'm wondering, was that such a good idea? This new net really absorbs fish odor, and to me that means it is sucking up a lot of slime from the fish, and that can't be all that good for the fish, might even spread disease. Another problem with this net is that your hook tends to get tangled in it. If I'm using a barbed hook or treble hook, it is almost for sure I'm going to have to cut the hook out of the net fairly often. But the bottom line is this: It turns out that the only fish I ever use a net for are fish I am planning to keep. Fish I'm going to release never see the inside of a net. Seems to me it is a whole lot easier on the fish if you don't use the net at all.
If it is a bass, I wet the fingers on my left hand, get a grip on the bass's lower lip (they are quite cooperative at this point even if you don't fight them to exhaustion) and reach in with my right hand and unhook him or her. If it is from the trout family, it's more complicated and involves getting both hands wet and never really taking the fish out of the water, but it is a whole lot easier than wrestling them out of a net while they are flopping around on my lap or on the bank. If I lose a fish at the boat or bank because I didn't net him, that's makes it even easier if I was going to release that fish anyway.
Next time I see one of those mono nylon nets at a garage sale, I'm going to buy it.
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Topic: stinky (new style) net vs hard-on-fish (old style) net (Read 2020 times)