I receive a lot of photographs of great fish from anglers out in the field. Most photos are well done, but many are unpublishable for a simple reason: the photo shows poor fish-handling technique. I won’t post a photo with a fish lying on the ground (even if it’s in a net), if there’s a finger in the fish’s gills, and so on. My very least favorite photos, the ones that make me actually wince, show an angler with a thumb in a trout’s mouth, as if the fish were a largemouth bass.
Above is a pretty good video that covers a lot of ground, from how to fight a fish to what to do with it after you’ve caught it. If you’re new to the game, this is a good primer, and even experienced anglers will pick up a pointer or two. Remember, the better we treat the fish we catch, the more likely that fish will be there for someone else to catch later.
