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Rec fishing mortality will always be a best guess type of thing. There was a very interesting study I ran across on the internet a couple years ago, where they actually had a bunch of guys catching bass tagging them and holding them in a large pen for several days, in an effort to get an idea of delayed mortality and the relationship between gut hooked fish and release mortality. They tracked alot of details and variables, the part of the study that surprised me was the fish dieing hours to days after being released. The idea that just because it swam away in a healthy angry and vigorous manner didn't necesarrily mean it was going to live. I feel I do a pretty good job treating a bass nice and letting it swim away (when I don't keep it) but after seeing this study I ended up feeling any gut hooked fish's odds weren't quite as good as I had thought they were previously.
Anyways, does this study ring a bell with anyone here? I just went looking for it briefly and didn't find it, but it really is one of the most interesting examples of data collection on this topic that I have seen.
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