I understand why fish must not be netted or taken out the water when on c&r but how are you expected to release a fish without taking it from the water when you are in a boat. Certainly doesn't seem a safe thing to do hanging over the gunwales to release it.

Pulling in a drougue or pulling up an anchor is no differant from leaning over and using forceps to take a fly out the mouth of a fish thats in a net!
Cant see where the confusion is, its not like you have to hang over the water

Use a net (one with a soft bag material), keep the net in the water as much as you can, and use foreceps to unhook the fly. simple.

thanks
rick

use barbless hooks, reach over, tweak the hook round. takes seconds. been doin it for years and not fallen in once. as bigtroot says, same risk dealing with anchor and drouges, in fact id say safer in most cases.

__________________
i was walking far from home, where the names are not burned along the wall, saw a building, high as heaven, but the door was so small

Angling urban legends. This is total bullcrapola that was invented by a small group of holier-than-thou anglers that think it makes them look more knowledgeable if they constantly try to one-up already sound practices by tacking on their own armchair logic. Logic that, in both of these cases, is totally wrong.

Both of these are very bad practices and should be recognized as such. It has been proved over and over that the key factor in C&R success is playing the fish quickly before it is exhausted to the point where it cannot recover AND then releasing the fish with minimal damage.

A net should absolutely be used because it enables you to land the fish faster and it minimizes the chances of damage caused by hook removal while the fish is flopping around freely. It should be a knotless net of fine mesh or soft rubber. These are widely available either as new nets or as net-only replacements.

A fish can and should be removed from the water if that makes for a faster release by making hook removal easier. The fish should be supported either by leaving it in the net, or handling it as gently as possible. Again, the key being to release the fish quickly while doing as little harm as possible when removing the hook.

And please, before someone bleats, "Noooooo, you'll remove the "protective slime" and they'll die of "infection" if you touch them with your hands," please do some research and stop repeating this urban legend.

There's no reason to stand on your head and go into bizarre contortions to safely land and release fish.

Play them firmly, land them as quickly as possible using a knotless net, unhook them as gently as possible while minimizing the time they are held to the extent possible. Place the fish back in the water, supporting the fish in an upright position and if necessary moving them forward and back in the water to move water through their gills. Hold them in this upright position, gently and slowly moving them until they swim away under their own power. Simple.

Grouse