Fish Descenders

[Oolie]

With all of the BSB showing lately I found it odd there was no dedicated thread to this tool on BWE and decided to start one.

When fishing in water deeper that 120 feet, often a fish reeled to the surface will be suffering significant barotrauma. The eyes are bulging the swim bladder or stomach will protrude from the fish's mouth, and there's very low odds of the fish making it out alive without assistance.
Black sea bass seem to fight themselves into a state of helplessness, and while they swim off on their own most of the time, their survival rate increases significantly the faster they reach a comfortable depth.
Some fish lack swim bladders, but whether or not they suffer from barotrauma or not is still not well studied.

Puncturing is not really a safe bet for the fish, because they have to make their way down past sea lions, porpoise and other predators, and then they have to survive bacterial infection of their internal organs. Odds of fish survival plummet with this method as compared to descending.

The amount of weight needed to quickly descend a fish increases significantly with the size of the swim bladder, so consider keeping and anchor handy for grouper, and descender rigged up or handy.

Thank you.

Here are some articles.
https://www.sportfishingmag.com/fish...ishing#page-12
http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/newslett...eep_water.html
http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa....kfish_down.pdf
https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conserva...ish/Barotrauma

[blitzburgh]

Thanks for the reminder and links . This was one I remembered with a couple ideas on it
http://www.bigwatersedge.com/bwevb/s...eferrerid=2463

[alanw]

For those that don't know, you can get a free Sheltons fish descender (SFD) http://www.sheltonproducts.com/SFD.html by going to OCEAN http://oceaned.org and request a device.

[ful-rac]

I use a fish descender all the time. I have the Roklees version, it seems to work pretty well for me. I once had a rokless and the shelton type fish descender ganged together on the same line...until the whole rig snapped off on me sending a fish down.

If you spend anytime fishing for rockfish, you really should invest in one of these devices. We have a wonderful resource in local rockfish, they are easy and fun to catch and they seem to be plentiful if you know where to look. So if you don't have one...be responsible and buy and use it while fishing for rockfish, the future of the resource is at stake!

[EastLosYaker]

Just requested my device. Thanks for the link.

[dos ballenas]

The devices these days are amazing and easy to use.... it's a win win win for everybody!

A) fish released at depth have a very high survival rate

B) no more feeding the sea lions or pelicans

C) the fish willl have a chance to get bigger, spawn, and then you can catch it again later!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c0CN_1veT0