Guided Catch and Release

While everyone we guide practices catch and release, lots of new and old research tells us that regardless of the care taken, there is an 8% mortality rate. What we’d like to do is keep the damage done to a minimum.

Here are some basic rules we follow:

1. We don’t take pictures of every fish you catch. In all probability, you will catch one of the biggest trout of your life. We will take a picture of your first fish if it is important to you. After the first fish, our policy is generally to take a picture of only very special fish – extremely colored or extremely big.

2. How we take pictures

• The client holds the net while the guide removes the fly while the fish is in the water and in the net. (Barbless hooks only.) If the fish requires some reviving, it is done at this time. If the fish doesn’t act normal almost immediately, the pictures are off the table and the only priority is reviving it and returning it to the water. Play your fish as fast as possible!)
• The camera is readied while the client puts the rod on the bank.
• The client kneels in the water while wetting his/her hands.
• The client reaches into the net and gently cradles the fish. One hand under the shoulders with no fingers or thumbs around the fish. The other hand holds the fish in the same way under the rear of the fish.
• The fish is gently lifted while the net is kept under it.
• The picture is snapped within a few seconds and the fish is returned to the water. If the fish is a flopper and/or the client is unable to hold it properly, there will be no pictures. We hope our clients understand our catch and release protocols. We want to catch the same fish next year – or next week! And that might be you! Pictures of the fish can be taken in the net and even underwater so that it really isn’t encouraged that fish even be removed from the water.