I fish for brownies using mostly small traditional flies with barbless/debarbed hooks.
Releasing fish is never a problem when they are hooked in or around the trout's lips, but often, especially when they really want the flies, they get hooked in the tongue or elsewhere inside their mouth. Now I have fairly large fingers and thumbs and the trout have relatively small mouths and I have problems getting the flies out. I carry a pair of flat faced pliers for debarbing the hooks but they never seem to work well. Are forceps the best or are there any other suggestions?

Dr Slick palm pliers, clamp to clothes, magnetic tips for picking out flies, scissors, dont catch on things and rather good hook remover.

ketchum release around £15 well worth the cash forceps just destroy flies

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fishing or the wife she is history orry dear]

I've only ever seen pics of those, never actually held one, but what's the difference between a ketchum release at fifteen quid and a regular coarse fishing disgorger costing 50p? They certainly look the same from the pictures I've seen, but as I said, I've never handled one so I might be missing something.

here we are humungus, hate expensive things that only do one job...might do it well though.

pair of forceps for me

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Kevin

Like a lot of things pre-fixed with the word "Game" tackle firms see it as an opportunity to charge us more money.

Every weekend, in the season, millions of coarse fish are unhooked, safely, humanely and in seconds using digorgers costing less than a £1.00. Throat hooked, tongue hooked, a disgorger will pop a fly out in a trice.

On the trout front. Firstly, if you intend to catch and release, whether on stillwater or river, use barbless or crush the barbs. You owe it to the fish.
Secondly, wet your hand before you handle the fish. If you can, leave the fish in the water, grip the fly and very often the fish will flip and toss the fly.

As I've stated earlier, game anglers are seen as a cash cow by tackle firms and it's always useful to peruse the coarse angling sites and see what prices they pay for their clothing, mono, gear, lifejackets, waders etc. You'd be suprised.

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I won a £1,000,000 and spent most of it on prostitutes, drink,trout fishing, cars, cocaine, cigars and the rest I wasted...

boy im glad you said that

Every weekend, in the season, millions of coarse fish are unhooked, safely, humanely and in seconds using digorgers costing less than a £1.00. Throat hooked, tongue hooked, a disgorger will pop a fly out in a trice.

Excuse my total ignorance but does the disgorger go over the eye of the hook onto the shank or does it stop at the eye? Will it still work with a fly?

If the hook shank is external to the mouth I prefer to use my fingers - otherwise a release tool as pictured above.