Today there are more and more steelheaders fishing for the experience of catching and are choosing to release their catch to ensure good fishing for everyone tomorrow. This catch-and-release philosophy suggests that steelhead fishing is valued as a high-quality recreational experience, rather than just a way to secure spawn or food.  Death is FINAL.

Guidelines for Catch and Proper Release 

How you handle your steelhead once it's hooked will affect its survival. If properly handled, it will have an excellent chance of survival, these fish are tougher than you give them credit for. Taking a few precautions when releasing your fish will allow it to live, spawn and be caught again. 

• Always use the heaviest leader as the condition permits and land your catch as quickly as possible. A fish played too long may not recover.  If you use a net to aid in landing your fish, using a soft fabric net reduces the risk of injury to the fish.

• Keep the fish in water as much as possible. A fish out of water can be injured while thrashing around or begins to suffocate. Attention to air and water temperatures must be considered.  The colder temperatures allow more time out of the water for photographs or show and tell.  The warmer the temperatures the risk factor is greater and could reduce survival.

• When ever possible use barbless hooks or hooks with the barb flattened.  This has several advantages such as better hook sets and easier removal.  Remove the hook carefully by grasping the shank of the hook (either with your fingers or hemostats).

• A major factor in the survival of a released fish is where it has been hooked. Do not pull on the line. Leave deeply set hooks in the fish. If the fish has swallowed the hook deep into its throat or the hook is set in the gill structure in the top of the mouth, do not attempt to remove it. The fish can remove it better and easier than you can. These fish have a greater chance of survival if the line is cut as close to the hook as possible and the hook is left in.

• If you must hold the fish to remove the hook, hold the fish gently behind the gill area. Squeezing the fish can damage internal organs and cause death. The gills are fragile and easily damaged, resulting in excessive bleeding, so keep your fingers out of the gills and remove the hook carefully.

• Help revive the fish. If a released fish does not swim away, hold it in a normal swimming position in soft current.  Moving the fish back and forth in the current is not necessary, the current will do the work to allow the gills to remove oxygen from the water and enter its blood. Most fish recover in less than a minute and readily swims away. If the fish is have trouble coming around, you may want to put the fish on a stringer to watch it for awhile.  If its condition improves satisfactorily you can release it or you will have to take it home.

• Keeping fish on stringers through the gill area may cause damage.  

• If the fish is badly bleeding, you should put the fish on a stringer to watch it and make sure before you release it, it will survive.