|
No, it has most to do with water temp.
After that hook location. As I understand it, lures with trebles, that usually end up in hard tissue do some mutilating but less death than bait which often ends up in soft tissue. Trebles with bait are the worst. That's why meat fisherman prefer them. Then J hooks, then circles.
The real bass killer for recreational C&R fishermen is time out of water in warm weather. Even with a very short time out of water many released fish die when water temps are high. I think the larger the fish the worse it gets (but have not seen that actually studied).
Still, in the studies that have been done, under the worst conditions more than 1/2 the released fish survive (even with soft tissue injury).
As for handling stress, there is a lot of inconsistency. Supporting snook by the jaw apparently injures many (isthmus injury), but the same treatment of LMB and very large muskies seems well tolerated. Nets in general add to mortality a bit.
The above is my understanding of this issue. I'm not somewhere I can provide links, but I have looked into it several times.
|