Here is one for ya.......tell me what you think.

Last year I was on a little creek floating eggs for kings and I get corked by a guy throwing spinners.

He set the hook in the same spot on 3 different casts and I am starting to wonder if he is really getting hits or "line bumps".
Anyway with the fourth hookset the rod buckles and he has a fish of about 15 lbs on the end of his rod.

After a couple minutes I see his spinner in the air and his rod still bent....??? Well his spinner got caught up in some line (about ten feet) that was attached to a corkie/hook combo that was in the mouth of that king. He landed the fish and kept it.
Your opinions.
Was this fish snagged? It did not bite/slash/tailslap/etc. his offering
Should he have released it?

thats a tough one , I once caught a king in Elliot Bay trolling a herring played the fish and when I brought it to the boat I was surprized to see that I had caught the snap swivel with a flasher ,green hootchie, and a nice 15lb. king attached to it. and yes I did keep it. I don't know if that was legal or not but I don't know too many people that would have let it go. What would you have done if your situation was reversed?

I'm not sure if the regs cover this situation specifically. But here's my view.

If the line that he "snagged" was attached to a hook that was legally positioned, i.e., inside the mouth, then I would say it's a legally caught fish. If the hook had been located on the fins, the side, or anywhere else, then retaining this fish would be illegal.

The position of the hook is the determining factor.

As long as the fish wasn't snagged I would of kept it as well.


Elkman

In december I was steelhead fishing, when I hooked one (I felt it hit) and I I pulled it toward me almonst had it in then it went for a run that is when I saw the hook in its mouth. Fought it for about 10 minutes then I felt the hook pop out, I thought for sure it was on there, so I started to reel in, and it was on there so I got it in and my leader was wrapped around the fish. I did keep it, cause when he went out for a run I saw the hook in its mouth, That was interesting, would you have kept it? It was a 12 pound steelhead

This wouldn't be a tough one at all for me. They guy's offering was not in the fish's mouth. The fish didn't strike at his lure. His lure happened to get snagged in a line that happened to be attached to the fish -- really no different than if his line had happened to get snagged in a line that happened to be attached to a fin, or if his itself had happened to get snagged directly on a fin.

That said, I realize other folks' interpretation, or moral code, may differ from mine, and I wouldn't become too upset about his keeping the fish.

I once kept a fish under similar circumstances. I hooked a king, felt a head shake, and knew it was hooked in the mouth. I brought it in and bonked it, only to realize seconds later that my line had hooked a tangle that was connected to his mouth. Felt bad about it, but it was too late. Obviously, I'm more careful now.

Keep it. Why not? If he was intentionally trying to snag the king and he accidentally caught a "legitamitally" hooked fish then thats wrong. But if he just accidentally caught some gear attached to the fish (in the mouth)I cant think of any reason why he shouldnt keep ity. The fish wouldve been kept by the guy who's stuff is in his mouth any way, so the fish was living on borrowed time anyways. Ive lassoed two fish in my fishing years and my father in law has caught the EYE of the swivel attached to a leader attached to a fish TWICE!! I kept my 2 fish because I know they bit and then rolled a bunch of times. The one fish I caught had my hook and corkie in his mouth but my line was wrapped around his mouth. Thats not strange you say? Your right. But my hook was not connected to my main line. I truly "lassooed" him. I had a couple of half hitches wrapped around his jaws and my line was broken trailing about 6 inchs behind him.

i would consider that a snag, because the fish did not choose to take the bait. you may not of been tryin to snag but it is just like if you drift over a fish and snag on to it. if that was me i would of let it go. just my opinion.

I gotta agree with 3/0. The fish did not voluntarily take YOUR lure in its MOUTH. Thats the way the regs define snagging. Then again the only opinion that matters in this case would be the game wardens. If I ever encounter situations like this, I will ask myself..Would I bonk this fish if the game warden were right beside me? The answer in this case would definately be no.

RL

Catch. Kill. Eat. Go to confession on Saturday if necessary.

That fish was snagged. Attempting to take fish with hook and line in such a way that the fish does not voluntarily take the hook(s) in its mouth.

two years ago on wind river my buddy hooked 20lb springer on wiggle wart but it came unbuttoned. ten minutes later we see fish jumping and rolling in twenty yard area. i motored over and couple net scoops later landed fish with plug still in mouth. we kept fish but i regretted it later. lost the next three steelies i hooked and had real slow year. bad karma at work. i always follow regs and next time freak thing happens like that again im putting fish back bad mojo

With all the respect one can offer, this is where I think some of you guys get a little judgemental. The guy didnt have much skill as it sounds and, by him taking a Fish that had a good chance of getting wrapped up in some snag(brush) somewhere father up the river and not completeing its cycle, just got the cracker off the river sooner. It all comes down to did the guy who caught it feel justified in taking the fish, Did he want one quick fish to take home for dinner for his family,,sound like he took the right one if he did...I have 2 examples of this 2 years ago while standing in a river bend I felt some thing on my thighs I reached down and it was some line, I could feel it had a fish on the up stream end so I tied a quick granny knot on my leader and fish on....it turned out to be hooked in the fin so after cutting the line near the hook I released her......last year I caught a nice bright buck that had a fresh Nasty gash from a seal on its body. I bonked it and this guy looks at me and says what did you do that for I caught that fish a hour ago and released it because the seal bite....I told him that I smoke my fish and if I cut around the gash when I clean it this is the fish I want to keep because its not going to make it to spawn....I see some people that practice catch and release (I do
to) but some act like they are better then the guys who keep a few for the dinner table, but even if you just accedently kill one fish and it gets wasted (It has to happen more then once) its still just that a waste, This is just my humble way of thinking and only trying to get a different point of view across. I dont get envolved in the small tit4tats that I see on some of these web pages....respectfully..DJ

Regs say nothing about snagging the broken line! The fish was hooked in the mouth, the line just happened to be temporarily disconnected from a rod. While up in BC a buddy crossed lines with a guy across the river who hooked into a nice king. The guy's line broke, my buddy ended up playing the fish for a while. Lost it, but I guarantee he woulda kept it.

Ok howbout this situation, your fishing shoulder to shoulder at *insert combat zone here*. The guy next to you hooks a fish legit, inside the mouth. You hurry to get your line in but the fish runs the guys line on yours and you hook the swivel on his set up. The fish then breaks the guys mainline, but your still hooked up via the swivel. You eventually land the fish, whada you do?
Easy its a snagged fish, per the regs definition, you should let it go.
You guys make a point by saying the ORIGINAL hook was in the mouth, ok I buy that, but then again will the gamie buy it? Ill bet dollars to donuts he writes that ticket.

RL

I've got one too. I was fishing the wind and suddenly I feel the headshake on my line. I start to fight this fish and see that he has taken the hook really deep. His gills are bleeding in during the fight and he's leaving a bloodtrail in the water. I thought to myself 'thank goodness we can keep all of the fish on this river, cause he's doomed' Anyway, by the time I get the fish up the bank I realize that I had only hooked a 1 oz cannonball sinker that was attached to the hook in the fish's mouth. I bonked it. He was a goner and the fish took the (original) bait so it wasn't snagged.

hey djfish

I once caught a hatchery steelhead up at barrier dam on the cowlitz with a healed seal bite right at the spine about 6 inches up from the tail. I could actualy put my fingers through the fish to the outher side around the spine the fish fought hard but was a little thin. the skin had healed right around the cut and the spine and the fish still made it all the way to where I was standing. for the record I killed it.
but I have no dout he would have spawned had I not killed it.

OK, here's another one for you. I used to do a bit pf plugging on a certain coast river that had lots of log jams in it and big pig steelhead that knew what they were for. Having a fish blow the hole, head under a logjam, and continue off downstream on the other side was a common occurence, and to combat that situation we would leave the guy with the fish upstream of the jam, have him slack his line, float on downstream, snag his line with another rod, cut it and tie a quick blood knot to a 3rd rod with half a spool of line on it for just this purpose, and resume the festivities. Once we had to do this 3 times, as the fish went down through the jam on one rod, up through the jam on another, and back down through again so we had to tie on a 3rd rod. And lest some of you start thinking that we would all be arrested and hung by our thumbs if a warden ever caught us, one of my fishing buddies was an enforcement officer and I helped him out of this jam several times. The fish voluntarily took the plugs in their mouths after all, our having to snag the line and re-tie it to another rod was just a technique to deal with a hairy landing situation and had nothing to do with snagging fish. Anyway, one day we left our bud way up the hole out of sight, went on down, found his line and retied, and landed a nice big chrome hen which we bonked for him. When we rowed back up, there he was looking bored with his rod bent. Told him to reel in and told us he couldn't because the fish was still on there and what had you b@stards been doing for so long down there? Well, we went back down with the line snagging rod and sure enough, hooked another fish, damn nice one too, bigger than the other by a couple pounds. Well, we bonked that one too (talkin' pre-Boldt 70's here, ok?, we released dark fish and dinks but not chrome hens!). They had identical chrome green hotshots in them, real popular lure at the time, although we did notice that the line on the first one was a different brand than my bud was using once we got to comparing them. Some cracker before us had obviously lost the fish under the jam and didn't know how to deal with it without busting her off and leaving her hung in the logs. Except for the bonking of all the fish I would do the same thing today to a fish that ran me under a jam with a clear conscience, and if it was a hatchery fish and I really wanted one I'd keep it too.

Cravenmorehead and I were fishing out of Sekiu last September when I spot something flashing ahead of us. There, in front of the boat, is a nice Piggy silver swimming along the top of the water, dragging someone's busted off flasher and hootchie rig. After about 5 minutes of jockeying around, I net the fish, no rod involved. The fish was a native, so he was released, but I kept the flasher!

Second instance. I was fishing the Wynoochee with Desert Dog, and he spots this fish, rolling sideways like a log down a hill. It was chrome bright, so we row over to investigate.

I touch the fish with the net, and it swims a bit, then I get it in the net. Turns out, the fish had taken someone's plug and the hooks had buttoned its mouth shut, then the fish broke off the leader.

This fish was a nice native hen. I removed the plug, and tried to revive the fish, but she didn't make it. I did keep the plug.

Both of these involved fish that had been hooked by someone else, broke off, then were netted by me.