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There is a new device available to fishermen that will allow you to remove hooks (J and Circle) from fish in most cases without ever having to remove them from the water! It's inexpensive and it works! Go back and read that again and stop and think about it for a minute.

Wouldn't you like to be able to remove hooks from the fish you are going to release knowing that you have given them the absolute best chance of surviving the encounter and help reduce hook and release mortality in the process?

I met with the folks from Aquatic Release Conservation, Inc., a small company in Daytona Beach, FL, a couple months ago to learn about their remarkable tool, the ARC Dehooker. It comes in four T-handle sizes that will work on everything from panfish and freshwater trout up to tuna and sharks. There is an additional big game unit that has either a 6 or 8 foot extention handle like a gaff that allows you to remove hooks from tuna, marlin and sharks further away from the boat with ease. To date I have used their tools on stripers, with circle and J hooks, bluefish, spotted sea trout and weakfish, yellowfin and school bluefin tuna, rainbow trout and salmon in Alaska, and sharks. With just a little practice they work so well they are astounding and, as far as I'm concerned, for the price every fisherman should have them and use them on anything to be released.

All the latest science indicates that release mortality is reduced when you can remove the hook from the fish. Leaving hooks in deep caught fish is usually a death sentence as they frequently cause infection and hooks in the throat are an impediment to feeding leading to starvation. Furthermore, handling fish to be released removes some of the fish's slime coat, which is its natural barrier against waterborne parasites, bacterial and viral infection. So if you can unhook a fish without handling it, even better, when it is still in the water, the chances of survival increase twenty fold!

Many of you know I work with the RFA and the staff there are so impressed with these tools that they have entered into a non-financial partnership meaning they aren't making any money on the sale of them. What they are doing is promoting the ARC Dehooker to their members as an answer to the problem of release mortality. Environmental groups are looking and recreational hook and release mortality as the next place to attack us so being proactive and doing all we can to reduce it voluntarily could take that stick they want to beat us with away.

Heard enough? OK here are some pictures. Then get off your butt and order and use them. They have my personal seal of approval. They appear in the latest edition of the RFA Newsletter, Makin' Waves, and will appear shortly in a feature article I did for Saltwater Sportsman.

They come in several sizes. The tiny one is the Panfish size, which works on trout, summer flounder, sea bass and other smaller fish. The middle one is the Sportsman, which works on a wide variety of inshore species and hook sizes. There is a 36" model for tuna, white marlin and even smaller sharks. And the big game models with extension handles are made for blue marlin, swords, bigger tuna and sharks. The critical part is the thickness of the shaft and the size of the pigtail at the end. The pigtail, when used on deeply hooked fish, captures the hook so it can not rehook the fish when it is being pulled out after pushing it easily out of the fish's flesh.

The subject fish in the five step photo series to follow is a 2 pound sea trout, southern relative of the weakfish. Step 1 is grab the line and reach out with the Dehooker and pull it back along the line so it slips into the pigtail. Super easy.

Step 2. Do a 1/4 turn to the right with the handle and the line is now inside the circle created by the pigtail.

Step 3. Slide the pigtail down the line to the hook. If the hook is outside the mouth or right on the lip, once the pigtail bottoms out on the bend of the hook simply pull the line to your left and the Dehooker to the right at a 180 degree angle and give the tool a little shake and it pulls the hook out and fish is free. With the fish in this picture, the hook is well inside the mouth, but it could even be all the way past the throat and in the stomach and the tool will work. It doesn't matter. Just slide the Dehooker into the fish's mouth. further down the line until you feel it bottom out on the bend of the hook.

Step 4. When the pigtail bottoms out on the bend of the hook (you do this by feel and it only takes a few tries before you can do it in the dark), bring the line parallel with the shaft of the tool and hold it tight. I actually grab the line with the same hand that is holding the T-handle, and then give a short jab with the tool. The amount of power you put into the jab will vary with the size of the fish, the size of the hook, but again that only takes a few tries and it becomes second nature. The jab pushes the hook out of the fish because the pigtail is pushing directly on the bend of the hook in the opposite direction it went in.

This is a Big Game hooker on an 8' extension handle and the hook is a 10/0 big game trolling hook. Notice how it is protected by the bends and the pigtail from rehooking the fish. This thing is WONDERFUL!!!

How many striped bass do you think you kill handling and releasing them? Especially using J hooks and sticking them deep in the mouth or throat? You can reduce the mortality just like this.

This is a 25 pound fish with a whole bunker in its mouth and the hook lodged well back there. The Dehooker slides down the line and was used to push the bunker off the hook. Then the hook was removed without incident and the bass swam away looking for something else to eat.

I've removed hooks from bass caught on chunks that were inside their belly. In some cases it requires taking them out of the water, so I lay them on a wet towel. The tool goes right past the sphincter muscle at the back of the throat and down until it bottoms on the bend of the hook, push and vioala, it's out and the fish is ready for release.

Right now the only place you can get the ARC Dehooker is directly from the company (www.dehooker4arc.com). The even make models for long liners to use to remove hooks from sea turtles and NOAA fisheries scientists say the have reduced turtle mortality by over 80%!

Call them up and talk with Shawn or Kristen about what you need, but stop killing more fish than is necessary. Buy this tool. The small ones are $10, the slightly larger ones run about $20. The extension handle big game models are more expensive, but they are incredibly well made and look great, too. They are solid stainless steel, will last you a lifetime and as fool proof as a hammer!

'Nuf said. What are you waiting for?