TALKING POINT Should foul-hooked fish count in matches or as specimen records?
After a top angler reveals he returned a potential personal best, we pose the question...
“When pleasure fishing, I don’t see how you can count foul-hooked fish”
IN MANY ways, a foul-hooked fish is angling’s equivalent to a deflected goal in football.
If it ends up in the back of the net the end result is ultimately the same, but for some, it doesn’t feel quite right.
The twinge of disappointment evoked by a fish hooked outside the mouth compels some anglers to release their prize without weighing or photographing it, while for others, any fish landed is still regarded as pounds and ounces, regardless of hook position, and will be treated the same as any other capture.
This week we talk to leading anglers from the match, specimen and carp fishing arenas, as well as regular Angling Times readers, to find out their varying opinions on this contentious subject. It’s one that certainly divides opinion!
Darren Cox, former England International and top all-round match angler
In match fishing, a lot of this comes down to the rules of the competition. If the rule says they count, then that’s the end of it.
In international competitions of the past you were supposed to put foul-hooked fish straight back, but the problem came in defining what a foul-hooked fish was – if it’s in the fin then clearly it shouldn’t count, but what if it’s just outside of the mouth?
It was also all self-policed, so now they’ve changed the rules so that any fish that’s landed counts.
When it comes to pleasure fishing, though, I don’t see how you can count foul-hooked fish. If I caught a new PB, for example, that was hooked in the fin, I’d still appreciate the fish, but I would find it a shame that it wasn’t hooked in the mouth and wouldn’t count it.
You want to feel you’ve encouraged a fish to take your bait, and while you may have encouraged it to approach that bait, you might not be presenting it correctly, causing the fish to shy away and leading to the poor hooking position.
Darran Goulder, all-round angler and former Drennan Cup winner
In my book, if a fish has been hooked anywhere outside of the mouth, it gets unhooked, slipped back and soon forgotten. They don’t count: it’s a case of close, but no cigar.
I haven’t caught many foul-hooked fish in my time, and certainly no real monsters... the occasional tench when using popped-up maggots, a couple of mid-sized barbel and the occasional carp when I was younger.
If I foul-hooked a huge fish, it might smart a little bit, but it wouldn’t hurt anywhere near as much as losing a big fish to a genuine hook-pull at the net. You never forgot those,
and I’m still licking my wounds from the loss of a monster perch on the Great Ouse more than 10 years ago, and also a pike that would have been in the upper-30lb bracket, maybe even over 40lb, which spat the hooks out at the boat just as I was about to net it around five years ago. I remember those both like they were yesterday.
Scott Lloyd, Burghfield Common captor and big-carp specialist
This is a simple one – if it isn’t nailed in the mouth, it’s going back. I just unhook them, treat any wounds, and set them free. You don’t even have to tell anyone about it. I like to think that, eventually, the carp gods will repay me!
Thankfully, I don’t foul-hook many fish, but occasionally when you’re using zig rigs it can happen. You can learn from it, though – if you hook them in the pectoral fin, for example, the fish are above your bait, whereas if you hook them around the face you’re probably not far off with your depth. When fishing floaters you can also foul-hook the odd fish as you’re striking into bites, but for most of my fishing on the deck they’re nailed in the bottom lip.