"The deep hooking mortality rate for striped bass caught with conventional bait hooks in this study was 53.1%." This is the result from a rather extensive and scientific study done by the Fisheries Service of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. That is the science. If you want to study it further go to
http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries...port/crsb.html. I know this study isn't going to come to the conclusion that #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& wants so he must believe that the folks at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources must be PETA supporters. The fact is deep hooking kills released fish unnecessarilly. If you aren't going to be able to take it home to eat, use a method that gives it a better than 50% chance to survive. It's the deliberate deep hooking that I object to. Everything else #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& spouts is just a smokescreen to justify his lack of understanding of what he is doing to the resource. I could care less if #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& kills a large fish. It would be nice to do it in a method that allows him to select those few large fish that he wants to keep and successfully release those he would like to catch in the future. Bassmaster and JeffH have the right idea. Set the hook when the fish hits, set it hard. You get the same result without having to kill fish that will be released
By the way a 50# bass, unlike #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&, is not over the hill, but exactly the genepool that we need blaying eggs in order to get more 50# bass. But that is another study #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& will attribute to PETA propaganda.