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You guys are right about that one particular tuna probably not making it and that size gaff in that position being hard on the fish, but as I pointed out in my original post, a bigger gaff was used in the photo to give an idea of how it's done. I also said that in practice, we used a smaller, dull gaff (that nearly always slid over to the thin membrane at the outside edges of the mouth, where they did less damage than most hooks). And, of course, we never pulled fish out of the water, like in the picture. My crew got very, very good at this and that, combined with the barbless hooks that we used, mostly circles and always in hollow squids, resulted in very fast, clean releases that spared one helluva lot of tuna lives. Please know that I am the first to say, as I do in my books, "if you are going to release a fish, for cryin' out loud, release a healthy one!"
Those long range guys are so good with their gaffs, I suspect that some could gaff a fly off an elephant's ass without the elephant even knowing it! With a few exceptions, the average, or even pretty active private boater isn't in the same class.
We have been using those ARC DeHookers for a long time now and never use the original small, dull gaff anymore. Those things do the job better and faster and with less trauma for the fish than anything that I have ever seen, plus, when it comes to the sharks, I don't want a gaff anywhere near their faces for a lot of reasons. The ARC is just unbeatable for those puppies and the way they keep the hook from re-hooking a deeply hooked shark is terrific and not a lot of skill is required, which is nice too.
Thanks for the inputs. It's good to see some others out there who are interested in not only releasing big tunas, but healthy ones to boot. That's all good and I'm sorry that I didn't make myself clear.
And that tuna in the picture did go in the box. He was just an unfortunate model. Pretty fish, though. Not a big one by LR standards, but not bad for us little boat people!
Here is how the chasebaits the I literally catch all of my tunas on and have for years, along with a cut-out of the entire rigging. Then, there is a cow with a tag in her back, about to get ARC'd. Check out how small that chasebait is and where the hook is...big tunas eat lots of little bait. It's whale food, after all. Good stuff for building strong bones and muscles, don'tchaknow?
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