foul hooking a fish

[WCO]

huntfish,
As other members have mentioned, snagging is illegal in PA. It is unlawful to take, or attempt to take, a fish by foul hooking it. If the foul hooked fish is released fine, but if you keep a foul hooked fish, and we see it, you will most likely have a conversation with us. I watched an individual snagging white suckers this past year...he was not happy when he saw the fine total on his citation.

 

[ryansheehan]

I should mention the bow was not foul hooked you can just see the san juan in the second picture. He ate a small midge which you can see in the first pic. Anyway, they all go back for me.

 

[724flyfishing]

I never saw full scale foul hooking until I went up to Oak Orchard and Burt Dam this past fall lol. That's just out of control. Guys actually have foul hooking down to a science. You'll see it on Walnut Creek and various Erie tribs in PA too, but mostly Walnut. It's illegal in both states and when I was in NY, officers were standing by both dams with binoculars and cameras, having a field day. Good to see. I've only foul hooked one stockie rainbow with a fly rod. Got him on the cheek. I think he spit my fly and I got him on a late hook set.

 

[huntfish]

Heres another question, just out of curiosity. So if keeping a foul hooked fish is illegal, whats the deal with bow fishing? Wouldn't that technically be the same as foul hooking?

 

[JackM]

Yeah, but it's hard to get a fish to take the point of an arrow in its mouth.

 

[FarmerDave]

huntfish wrote:
Heres another question, just out of curiosity. So if keeping a foul hooked fish is illegal, whats the deal with bow fishing? Wouldn't that technically be the same as foul hooking?

No.

Apples to oranges.

Bow fishing is only legal for carp, suckers, and apparently catfish in PA.

If you want to keep a carp that you had inadvertently foul hooked, I personally wouldn't turn you in.;-)

 

[pcray1231]

I've foul hooked a number of fish on dry flies! Like a previous poster said, it results from an overly aggressive refusal.

But certainly happens more often when nymphing, and more often with stockies or else rough fish because they aren't under cover. Expecially when fish are either visible or confined to a narrow run. You're lining them. As the line drifts past it catches on a fin. An angler thinking it's a strike, or a fish going nuts, pulls the hook right into the fin.

Anyway, an interesting diversion is the whole moffit system debate. We've had this one before. Lure, usually an egg imitation but not always, posted on the line a few inches from a circle hook. Intent is that the fish attempts to eat said imitation with hook not in the mouth, and upon hookset, pulls the line through the mouth and hooks them on the outside corner of the jaw. In combo with a circle hook, hookset is more often in that corner of the mouth, where it's more solid when fighting at different angles, and never goes deep.

Per the letter of PA law, that's a foul hook and illegal, but from a moral standpoint I don't gotta problem with it so long as the fish actually attempted to eat the offering.

 

[BrookieChaser]

FarmerDave wrote:

Bow fishing is only legal for carp, suckers, and apparently catfish in PA.

Buffalo is another. Basically it's all those fish that the mouth-breathers deem unworthy.

 

[FarmerDave]

BrookieChaser wrote:

FarmerDave wrote:

Bow fishing is only legal for carp, suckers, and apparently catfish in PA.

Buffalo is another. Basically it's all those fish that the mouth-breathers deem unworthy.

Buffalo is a sucker, assuming you mean the fish.

It's not about the mouth breathers. Us mouth breathers do not view catfish as unworthy. Tastes as good as the more high falutin tilapia.

 

[NPflychucker]

Ive foul hooked my share of stocked trout, I feel most times its because of an over aggressive take or a partial committal. But with the small files usually no harm no foul to the fish. Now Ive seen it real bad in NY on the Oak Orchard and Johnson Creek. Some of the salmon look like Christmas trees swimming out there they have so many tackle ornaments hanging off of them. Granted it is going to happen there, big fish with bigger gear, you are bound to stick a few in the fin or belly but every year it seems to get worse with seeing people just blatantly doing it. But wheres the fun in that, no skill involved. But you know youre a professional snagger when you can manage to foul hook a goby lol

 

[moon1284]

Johnson Creek LOL. Never thought I'd hear that one on a forum.

I've caught a salmon before where the hook was attached to another hook that was snagged in the fish's back. I also foul hooked a lamprey eel that was attached to a lake trout and landed the lake trout with the lamprey still attached. I ended up killing the lamprey and releasing the laker.

 

[evw659]

I remember what it was like on the Salmon River when I was first there about 7 years ago, pretty much everybody was intentionally snagging. It was funny because the guys with fly rods were often the most blatant snaggers, at least when I was there during the Salmon run (of course spin guys were bad too). Literally some of these guys would find a pod of fish in 3-5' of water, put a few ounces of lead on, and just repeatedly cast in, figure out how to time the drift to line the fish, and then rip the hook through the water, and repeat until they snagged one. some of these guys would snag a fish every 30 casts or so. I'm curious if its still that bad up there, haven't fished the salmon run in about 5 years or so.

 

[JMP]

Not technically a snag, I once had my fly hook the loop of a snelled hook in a trout that "got away" from someone casting bait. I gently removed the hook and sent him on his way.

 

[BrookieChaser]

FarmerDave wrote:

It's not about the mouth breathers. Us mouth breathers do not view catfish as unworthy. Tastes as good as the more high falutin tilapia.

The mouth-breather comment was in regard to the bow"fishermen" themselves. I know many, and not one eats what they kill.

 

[FarmerDave]

BrookieChaser wrote:

FarmerDave wrote:

It's not about the mouth breathers. Us mouth breathers do not view catfish as unworthy. Tastes as good as the more high falutin tilapia.

The mouth-breather comment was in regard to the bow"fishermen" themselves. I know many, and not one eats what they kill.

OK. I've actually been thinking of giving bow fishing a try and have no intention of eating the catch unless it it a catfish.

There. How's that? ;-)

Seriously though. I have no problem with bow fishing for carp. It aint like it will hurt the population any. If I do ever give it a try and shoot a couple carp, I'd do the same thing with them that I do with the groundhogs I shoot.

BTW, you would be welcome to shoot some groundhogs too.

 

[BrookieChaser]

FD, you've hit on my real problem with bow fishing. There are no checks on harvest numbers, no inventory of participants and no total fish population numbers to calculate sustainable yield that can be harvested. I know multiple bowfisherman and they complain about fish numbers being low. I have no idea why that would be when they kill every fish they see.

I've never heard a groundhog hunter complain about not seeing hogs. I've shot groundhogs with my bow, it's good practice for deer stalking. The groundhogs get chopped up, buried in a mason jar, and used for trapping bait. By the way, they taste like rabbits, but only eat the younger ones, the old ones are tough.
I get tired of being on a sidehill, loaded, and hit a groundhog hole I can't see with the downhill side wheels. It'll wake you up.