Recently, I have been deep hooking alot of undersized flounder. I'm faced with cutting the line and leaving the hook in them or trying to cut the hook out. Either one will probably kill them. What should I do? Is there a de-hooker that will work? I really hate to kill undersized fish.

I've had a couple of conversations with Jon Lucy (who is currently doing flounder catch and release mortality research at VIMS) about this exact topic. Jon says they've actually caught flounder where they've allowed the fish to completely swallow the bait and get "gut-hooked." They've then placed these fish in holding tanks at VIMS for observation. Amazingly, after a couple weeks, over 50% of these fish were able to somehow dislodge the hook and spit it out as long as there was no initial damage to the gills. He says they'll find the hook laying in the bottom of the tank! He also says they have absolutely no idea how the fish are able to do it, but somehow they do.

According to Jon, the fish has a far greater chance for survival if the leader is cut at the eye of the hook and released instead of trying to remove the hook.

Hope this helps...

Blake

I concur the hook should be left alone just cut the leader as short as u can and release the fish .The less slime you rub off the fishes body the better,the slime is a protective layer if too much gets rubbed off with handeling the fish is more likely to get diseases.

My slime keeps me from catching diseases too !!!

Definitely leave the hook. Fish are use to eating other fish with fins and crabs with claws. They have a better chance of dealing with a hook in there gut than damaged gills cause by digging the hook out. Cut the line as short as possible and remove any skirts, spinners, or plastic trailers if possible.

I concur with the rest - cut the line as short as possible and let 'em live.