04-28-2013, 07:33 AM
Survival varies greatly between species with trout being the most fragile locally. I don't like to tell people what they should or shouldn't do with such a renewable and public resource. I myself like to get them back in the water as quick as I can with minimal handling and if they're bleeding pretty heavy they don't go back. A little blood to us is a lot of blood to them and last I checked fish don't swim to an underwater hospital for a quick transfusion. I've always wet my hands, in my early fishing years I did it to keep the slime from sticking to me. Now I do it for them to. Not sure of any facts, but why not try to improve their chances. The only one I know harms fish is sticking your fingers through the gills. The oil on our hands inhibits the gills from absorbing oxygen. I've seen fish dropped from a plane in Wyomings wind rivers and they are way closer to the water than hundreds of feet the lake I was at is small and surrounded by tall pines and they still got within 100ft of the water. It want long before a few floaters made it to where I was fishing and they were very small. Probably no more than 3in. I would guess being that small they would slow down greatly before they hit the water, there wasn't much disturbance on the water when they were dropped.
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