First let me establish that, in my view, not every snook caught and held vertically by the lower jaw by a Boga Grip will die or even become injured. Probably the smaller the snook have less chance of its being injured. I know that over the years I have been guilty of just what we’ve been describing. I have also been present when friends and other anglers have caused the same injury. It upsets me to realize that I personally  caused severe injury to a large, and probably old, female snook. What a magnificent fish- the snook! We also have to think about females that are caught during the summer late in the afternoon. Many’s the time I've seen them shed the batch of ovulated eggs right on the deck. Maybe if those snook had been left in the water for the appropriate support, those eggs would not have been lost.

My point in making the case for proper handling techniques is this- I refer to the 2002 snook stock assessment. There we note that 26% (10,255/39,793) and 43% (27,674/63,946) of the current total harvest is the result of lost snook that died from being caught and released (not kept, but caught and released) on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, respectively. one arrives at those numbers by multiplying the total number of snook caught by the rate of release mortality (0.0213, or 2%). this 2% has to be a minimum rate because my staff and I conducted this study and we were careful to de-hook the snook quickly and to minimize handling. what if the mortality rate were 10%, five times as great as what we determined? And that rate (10%) is about the mean rate for estuarine fishes in Florida!!! That would mean that 3.7 times as many snook on the Gulfcoast would be lost to hook and release as are 'put in the cooler'. Wasted!!

As the number of anglers and attendant exploitation increases we, therefore, have to be very careful how we handle each and every snook. Our numbers tell us now that each snook is caught at least twice before it is harvested. So the next time you catch a large snook, please keep these facts in mind, and let's all try to keep the snook stocks as healthy as possible. It is my hope that we never have to move to a total catch-and-release snook fishery.

Ron Taylor, FMRI Snook Scientist