When should foul hooked fish be allowed to be weighed in??

[TF_Cutnut]

These days it’s hardly possible to go through a match without foul hooking a fish or two, maybe it’s ok if the hook is near the mouth to pop it in the net or is it?..the current trend seems to be unless specifically told not to everyone does.

[Anonymous]

The question should be “when should foul hooked fish not be allowed”?

I,ve seen a few angles over the years foul hooking fish on purpose IMHO. They knew what they where doing and generally got away with it. Big strong hooks and lots of strung out shot seems to be the rig rather than balanced tackle. . Feeding heavy and very often seems to be the way to feed instread of feeding to bites or to the particular style of fshing there attempting to do. (eg, up in the water or on the deck). Striking like a mad man at any little movement on the float instead of carefully lifting the pole at real bites.

I hate foul hooking fish as i see it as reducing the number of settled fish in my peg. I would rather work a swim out and hook everything in the gob than foul hook fish after fish in the hope of getting a few in the net. To target foul hooking fish is just cheating and those anglers that do it on purpose should be banned. Anglers seen to be foul hooking more than just the odd fish should be asked to change the way they are fishing so there is no suggestion of gaining an advantage that only damages the fish that we are all hoping to catch by fair means.

[TF_joffmiester]

i for one think they should be allowed as you are lucky most of the time to get them out ,but i’m not a commercial angler and foul hooking can be a method of catching fish when they are reluctant to feed !! this should not be allowed at any cost ,but that’s one for the commercial lads to sort out .i know if i foul hook a bream on the canal it should count Ive not purposely gone out to foul hook it 😉 😉 😉

[TF_JohnH]

Our club banned foul hooked fish being weighed on matches for a while and then decided to allow it. Its almost impossible to police, even some apparent foul hooked fish were in fact legitimate but line had snagged on fins etc etc. It just became something else to fall out about. Personnaly when I hooked a fish I thought was fouled I would bully them to the net, only realising at the last minute they were not foul hooked.
I thought under national rules it states foul hooked fish must be returned to the water straight away. I had a chat with Clint at Whiteacres, (who allow foul hookers to count) and his stance on it was fine for us so our ban was removed Clint told me providing the fish was fished for sensibly no one intends to foul hook fish. If someone does its best to limit hook size rather than to try and ban it all together..

[TF_boss baitParticipant]

@TrueBlue wrote:

The question should be “when should foul hooked fish not be allowed”?

I,ve seen a few angles over the years foul hooking fish on purpose IMHO. They knew what they where doing and generally got away with it. Big strong hooks and lots of strung out shot seems to be the rig rather than balanced tackle. . Feeding heavy and very often seems to be the way to feed instread of feeding to bites or to the particular style of fshing there attempting to do. (eg, up in the water or on the deck). Striking like a mad man at any little movement on the float instead of carefully lifting the pole at real bites.

I hate foul hooking fish as i see it as reducing the number of settled fish in my peg. I would rather work a swim out and hook everything in the gob than foul hook fish after fish in the hope of getting a few in the net. To target foul hooking fish is just cheating and those anglers that do it on purpose should be banned. Anglers seen to be foul hooking more than just the odd fish should be asked to change the way they are fishing so there is no suggestion of gaining an advantage that only damages the fish that we are all hoping to catch by fair means.

you might remember quite few years ago at brookside all the fish were shoaled up under a bridge i think (near peg 1 ) and there was a few well known anglers(at the time there was a bonus peg system with about £2000 plus in it) using big hooks with worms or maggots on
i would have banned them all it was a disgrace

[TF_Gavin]

If it’s not intentionally foul hooked it’s fine to weigh it in, in my opinion. Those foul hooking on purpose…. well, they need a good slap!

[TF_AnthonywatersParticipant]

I dont think theres any good anglers who foul hook on purpose, anyone who sets their stall out to deliberately foul hook fish will not do well in match anging foul hooked fish are difficult to land when you land em !On another note match organisers can do something to help out here and dont put pegs in which are blatantly full off spawning fish, it happened to us where we told the organiser a peg was black with spawning skimmers and he should leave it out of the draw bag, anyway he put the peg in question in the draw, the lad that drew it had 70lb of skimmers all 2lb mark then the lad on the next peg blew his stack saying hed cheated and foul hooked 90% of his fish, all this was avoidable in my opinion 🙁

[TF_Smed]

fishery near me bans margin fishing when the fish clearly are spawning!
i agree with JohnH
just set a hook limit as it seems the ones who are deliberatly foul hooking fish are using extra large hooks in an attempt to get em in…

sad……

[TF_duanepipe]

i once overheard a match angler talking to one of the most respected angling bodies in the world about this problem of foul hooking and not getting them in the net. he suggested using a 175 hook 😮 . it is part of the sport that we have to accept couse it is imposible to police.but someone fishing with the intent to foul hook fish should not be aloud to weigh in.

[Author]

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