03-29-2006, 03:08 PM
a hook retractor as a kid growing up on Lake Eire was my index finger. If a perch swallowed your hook you just ran your index finger down inside the bend of the hook and stuck the barb in the top of your finger nail. A 2 second deal and the hook popped out. Now that was warm water fish and rarely do I have a trout swallow my fly .
I use a wooden dowel about as round as your finger with a tea cup hook screwed into the bottom it. I had a gentlemen on the Rogue show me this years ago. You have to have 4x or stronger tippet on and at least a #12 hook. This is great for streamer fishing or stillwater fishing with wooly buggers. You just grab the tippet at least a foot above the fish ( I am right handed so I grab it with my left hand)- with the right hand I hook the tea cup hook over the tippet and run it down to the bend of the hook and pull up on it. Your right hand should end up above ( in height) of your left hand. Gravity pulls the hook out. Once you get the hang of it, you don't have to even look and it is a 1 second deal. I have gone to varnishing the dowel and carry one on a zinger on my pontoon boats and one in my chest pack. Simplest, smoothest tool ever. The fish does have to be hooked in the mouth and not down the throat. I have made them in much larger sizes for Salt Water. You never touch the fish ever when doing this. About as slick a catch and relase as there is. Costs about 30 cents to make and much smoother that a Ketchum and release tool I am sure you have seen in fly shops.
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I use a wooden dowel about as round as your finger with a tea cup hook screwed into the bottom it. I had a gentlemen on the Rogue show me this years ago. You have to have 4x or stronger tippet on and at least a #12 hook. This is great for streamer fishing or stillwater fishing with wooly buggers. You just grab the tippet at least a foot above the fish ( I am right handed so I grab it with my left hand)- with the right hand I hook the tea cup hook over the tippet and run it down to the bend of the hook and pull up on it. Your right hand should end up above ( in height) of your left hand. Gravity pulls the hook out. Once you get the hang of it, you don't have to even look and it is a 1 second deal. I have gone to varnishing the dowel and carry one on a zinger on my pontoon boats and one in my chest pack. Simplest, smoothest tool ever. The fish does have to be hooked in the mouth and not down the throat. I have made them in much larger sizes for Salt Water. You never touch the fish ever when doing this. About as slick a catch and relase as there is. Costs about 30 cents to make and much smoother that a Ketchum and release tool I am sure you have seen in fly shops.
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