Eruk's Wilderness Float Tours
  Southwest Alaska Fly Fishing Trips


Catch and Release Policy and Procedures

My guides and I give instruction and assistance in landing fish. We use several methods to avoid touching fish or touch only with wet hand. If angler seems clumsy or inept, the guide will land all fish possible. Disrespect or carelessness of landed fish is not tolerated.

Fly fishing tackle is used exclusively by 80% of my guests. Those using only spin tackle amount to less than 5%. Guests use fairly heavy line or tippet: 8 to 10 lb test for resident fish, which weigh up to 6 lb.; 12 to 25 lb. test for various salmon weighing 5 to 55 lb. We encourage anglers to land fish quickly.

Guests and guides always use hooks of legal size. We try to match hook size to expected fish: #1 for kings and chums; #4 for silvers, rainbows and char; #8 to 12 for grayling. Barbs usually flattened on hooks for kings and chums; Barbs must be flattened for all other species.


Methods of landing I believe minimize trauma and damage:

1. Use of soft mesh net to corral fish, and control while remaining in the water; not necessary to touch unless hook is deep. Net used for kings to shorten fight time and insure landing.

2. Beaching medium and small salmon and large resident fish. Fish is slid into shallows where it lies on side while one hand pins down and other unhooks.

3. Handle in water by grasping line in one hand, other hand unhooks or cradles and lifts fish to be unhooked.

4. Unhooking done with fingers or forceps. We also use a wire loop invention which allows unhooking fish without touching it or lifting from water.


Rainbows get special treatment. They are actually easier to handle than arctic char due to their shape, and trait of going limp when cradled upside down.

Guides try to assist in landing and get photo session over quickly. Guests are discouraged from standing with fish for photo especially over land. It is safer and a better photo if they kneel in shallow water and donÍt hold fish more than an inch above water.


Fish are revived after landing by holding in moderate current until ready to swim away. Don't let it lie on its side or pump mud through its gills.


I donÍt recall fish dying due to mishandling on my trips. Swallowed flies or lures causing fish hooked in gills results in high likelihood of mortality. I estimate fish mortality on my trips to be under 2% of fish landed.



Research on catch and release in SW Alaska
size=+1>                                   " Caught on a Fly!"

                            Photos of Alaskan fish species:
 

                                                    Arctic Char
 

Rainbow Trout
 
 
 

  Would you like to be here?
 
 
 


Photos of Chum and Coho Salmon


Alaska hunting equipment


Home

Fishing Forecast

Fish run timing; Recommended Tackle and gear list
 

State biologist advice on catch and release
Pacific Salmon Biology
Chemical contaminents in Pike, Yukon Drainage
Bear Pepper Spray Info
AK Fish and Game's Bristol Bay predictions and species descriptions
 

Eruk's Wilderness Float Tours
12720 Lupine Rd.
Anchorage, AK 99516
Tel: (907) 345-7678 or Toll Free (888) 212-2203

Email: erukwild@acsalaska.net
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E-mail so we can send the appropriate brochure!