Foul Hooked Fish

If you were to foul hook a 5 inch sandeel (not a launce), would you count it towards your species count for the year?

yip. as long as you didnt purposely try and fowl-hook him

good enough for me

signature updated

No...

If it wasn`t caught in the mouth area then i doesn`t count!!
I think i read somewhere that if it was hooked from the gill covers forward then it would count for comps,record claims etc.Anywhere else and it wouldn`t...

I had a 5.5lb mullet on the fly rod last year but i FOUL hooked it just behind the head and i didn`t claim it..

If you hooked an 18lb bass in the tail would you claim for the new Irish record??

If you hooked an 18lb Bass in the tail would you claim for the new Irish record??

That would really depend on what my name was and if i had really caught the fish in Irish waters

If you hooked an 18lb Bass in the tail would you claim for the new Irish record??

That would really depend on what my name was and if i had really caught the fish in Irish waters

I think i know the very bloke you are talking about!!

ok, its not necessarily a 'legitimately' or fairly caught fish but i would still see it as a caught fish all the same
comps or records can make up their own rules
so, a caught fish regardless, albeit not appropriately, and addable to any species count list IMHO. FWIW..

lets be clear
i couldnt care less about comp rules or claiming specimens, i have no interest in this
this is just for my own species count for the year

and lets face it, we are talking about a 5 inch sandeel here, given the size of their mouth i doubt i would be able to catch one any other way, even with mini feathers

lets be clear
i couldnt care less about comp rules or claiming specimens, i have no interest in this
this is just for my own species count for the year

and lets face it, we are talking about a 5 inch sandeel here, given the size of their mouth i doubt i would be able to catch one any other way, even with mini feathers

If ye didn`t want to know what other people think then why ask??

i just said that as i didnt want this to decend into another long complaining thread about comp rules and stuff

Its a tricky one mate. My view is "Angling" is the skill of catching fish on a baited hook or something that tricks the fish into thinking its real food like lures or feathers. However when I foul hook a fish I always like to think he was gonna go for the bait anyway haha! A 5inch Sandeel is different though! He normally is the bait!

i,ve seen plenty of bass/pollock n macks slash/strike at lures and become foulhooked, come to think of it prob 30/40% of all my lured fish are hooked outside the mouth.............

I would count it in.
I have also had a lot of bass to that have been hooked outside the mouth, particularly close to the gill covers, presumably they were lashing at the lure with their gill plates to stun it. Sometimes I have caught bass that were hooked lower along the body - may have been trying to hit the lure with their doral fin.

I have had plenty of foul hooked flounder - I could feel them nibbling and pulling at the bait, struck and hooked them in the body. I would think that at times there could have been several fish surrounding the bait and pulling at it and pulling it from each other. Maybe it would not count in a competition but I couldn't care less about that - as far as I am concerned they were after the bait and I hooked them.

Similar with the sandeel - there may have been a shoal of them taking nibbles out of your bait, if you hooked one then it was most likely because they were trying to eat your bait, so I reckon you caught it.

It would be a different matter if you were deliberately trying to foul hook fish - as was discussed on this site last year regarding foul hooking mullet. But if you were genuinely bait fishing (or lure fishing) and a fish is foul hooked then it counts in my book.

easy call to make stick it on the list well done you another species on your list ya cast out a bait and reeled in a fish what more can be said

if you intentionally foul hooked it id be impressed it takes skill to do it to, just claim it either way you caught it

Yes............. Count it. No harm done.

If you hooked an 18lb Bass in the tail would you claim for the new Irish record??

id bbq it

Hooked a 6lb smoothie in the clasper 2 years ago. I’ve never experienced a fight like it.

Fairly understandable though.

come to think of it i remember eric foul hooking a tope in the tail in the boat, we taught he had a blue shark

Under international sea angling rules... all 84 pages of them, published under the auspices of the world governing body, the confederation international de la peche sportive.
Any fish caught anywhere on the body is eligible to be counted for competition purposes, intentional foulhooking of a fish leads to disqualification of the fish, a fish caught by 2 anglers in the body at the same time is ineligible, a fish caught by 2 anglers in the mouth at the same time is ineligible, a fish caught by 2 anglers, one in the mouth and one in the body, shall be counted for the angler who's hook is in the fishes mouth.
Pretty comprehensive I think.
The rule about only counting fish being hooked forward of the gill cover, is for the purpose of claiming a specimen or record fish.