982 | Keep Fish Wet with Sascha Clark Danylchuk: Better Catch-and-Release Practices and Water Temperature

00:00:00 Dave: For years. Sixty-eight degrees has been one of those numbers trout anglers hear over and over again. But what if the science is telling us we should start paying attention well before the thermometer gets to that level? Today we’re looking at what actually happens to fish during catch and release, including some surprisingly simple changes we can make on the water. My guest today is Sasha Clark Danylchuk, executive director of Keep Fish Wet and a fishery scientist who has spent decades studying catch-and-release impacts. Today, we’re going to find out about that sixty eight degree temperature and why this may not be the number trout anglers should be focused on all the time, and why, Sasha says. The point where some trout begin to get effective is closer to sixty-one degrees. We’re going to find out how carrying a stream thermometer can help you make better decisions throughout the day. We’re also going to talk about the three keep fish wet principles, including minimizing air exposure and eliminating contact with dry surfaces and reducing handling time. We’re also going to talk about fish photos and how this can add more stress in how you can actually take a great fish photo and get the fish released back to the water sooner. Plus, why the old practice of holding fish in the current and reviving it may not be the best move. I think some of us do that. You want to make sure that fish is is doing well before you let it go. But we’re going to talk about that today. The best catch and release practices. You can learn more about Sasha and find their science based resources at keep fish dot org. All right, let’s get into it. Here she is. Sasha Clark Danylchuk. How are you doing, Sasha? 00:01:34 Sascha: I’m great. How are you, Dave? 00:01:36 Dave: Great. Great to have you on here. We’ve we’ve heard a lot about keep fish wet over the years, and it seems like you’re out there. You’ve been leading for a while. This the concern of, you know, water catching fish and releasing them and water temperatures, it seems to be just getting more and more, maybe even more confusing. I think, you know, I think people talk about certain temperatures, but we’re going to dig into all that today, maybe talk a little fly fishing, you know, kind of jump around a little bit, but but start us off first. How did this keep fish wet? Maybe first talk about how the idea came to be and what your role is in the whole program. 00:02:08 Sascha: Yeah. So we started sort of as a social media movement. As you know, Instagram and Facebook were getting popular for anglers, and everybody was posting pictures of every single fish that they caught. And, you know, back in twenty fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, um, when like hashtags were still being used widely, you know, and, and there was a little, a little bit of it came out of frustration, to be honest, like seeing photos of fish that were like thrown up on the bank and covered in dirt. And then there was like hashtag catch and release and just realizing like, oh, that fish really isn’t looking so good. I’m not, I’m not sure he actually was gonna make it. So we started kind of as a hashtag, um, with using keep em wet and just trying to reframe the conversation around catch and release and what things anglers can do to make a difference for fish that you’re planning on releasing. And especially when it came to photos, like what are ways to take fish friendly photos and ones that look good to, you know, a fish covered in dirt? Like that’s not. 00:03:29 Dave: No, that’s not always. 00:03:30 Sascha: The greatest looking photo, right? So, so yeah, so sort of started as a social media movement for a while. Um, the hashtag keep em wet used a ton and then decided that like this had legs and there was more that we could do with it. And so started working to, to form an official nonprofit. 00:03:57 Dave: What year was that when you started the nonprofit or started? 00:04:00 Sascha: Twenty nineteen oh. 00:04:01 Dave: twenty nineteen okay. Yeah. It seems like that’s the other amazing thing about how the timeline too, because, you know, right now as we speak is twenty twenty six and it feels like you’ve been around for like twenty years, you know, at least, right? It feels like it’s been because you’ve just been out there everywhere, everybody you know. Right. I think it’s this movement, like you said, that’s probably why you started this movement. 00:04:19 Sascha: Yeah, yeah. I mean, and that was going for like four or five years before we actually officially became a nonprofit. So we were doing still doing a bunch of stuff still like digging into some of the science, but we didn’t actually have like the IRS five hundred one C3 status, um, until twenty nineteen. So, um, yeah, so when we got that, I took over as executive director and I’ve kind of running the organization ever since. 00:04:51 Dave: Wow. Did you just jump into this as like interested or do you have a background in kind of in that field, science or biology? 00:05:00 Sascha: Yeah, I’ve got a background in fisheries science and actually have done most of my scientific work on catch and release and the impacts of catch and release. 00:05:10 Dave: Oh, cool. 00:05:10 Sascha: I did my master’s on impacts of catch and release on bonefish in the Bahamas. So I’ve been I’ve been working on these type of issues for a couple of decades. 00:05:22 Dave: That was going to be my next question for you. Yeah. Because I feel like the salmonids get, you know, because they’re the ones that are probably more susceptible than some. Right? I mean, if you talk about a carp or some of the warm water fish, right? And even like we were up fishing, you know, at a lodge, it was pretty amazing up in northern Saskatchewan, fishing for pike, northern pike and, um, and out of boats and stuff. Right. And we were taking the fish out and getting photos of them out of the water. And I was kind of thinking, well, I guess they’re pike so they’re strong, you know, how do you look at that when you have all these? Are there some species. You have to be a lot more careful. How do you describe that? 00:05:57 Sascha: Yeah, there’s definitely some species that are just more susceptible to different aspects of an angling event. Right. So, you know, trout bonefish are like air exposure can be pretty rough on them. Jacks seem to be so permit, you know, Jack for all, like all those species tend to be a little more resilient to air exposure. Carp. So somebody gave me the great analogy once with carp, like, man, you could like catch that thing and throw it in the trunk of your car and drive around all weekend and release it Monday morning. 00:06:37 Dave: Right? 00:06:38 Sascha: Fine. 00:06:38 Dave: Yeah. Yeah. 00:06:40 Sascha: Yeah. And then like, you know, so different parts of angling, like some species are, you know, fight time really makes a difference for them. Some species, it’s things like slime removal, you know? So how how you’re handling what kind of net you use can make a big difference. So yeah. 00:07:04 Dave: Are there any species where we don’t have to, you know, keep them wet out there or there? Like we were saying, are there. Well, carp might be one, but you know, is there a list out there of the ones that maybe we, we can pull out of the water a little more and all that. 00:07:16 Sascha: So I’m just going to like make your question even more complicated. Um, so the other thing that plays into it is things like, like water temperature, right? 00:07:25 Dave: So yeah. 00:07:26 Sascha: There’s species that at like lower water temperatures are a little more resilient when it comes to water to when it comes to air exposure. Striped bass is one that comes to mind. But if as soon as you get like above sixty eight degrees for striped bass, then air exposure becomes even more detrimental. And in general, that’s the case for a lot of fish species. Um. High water temperatures can be rough on them. But yeah, so, so there’s other factors that can come into play. So it’s, it’s kind of hard to. 00:08:03 Dave: It’s not easy. Yeah. You can’t. 00:08:04 Sascha: Yeah. Give you a direct answer. 00:08:06 Dave: Totally. Just the movement of what you’ve done the keep. And it’s pretty cool. And I know there’s probably been other brands and groups involved along the way, but you know, it’s cool because it’s just, um, it’s tough. We were talking about this yesterday. You’ve got a brand new person. They just started fly fishing. They have no idea about keeping wet. They have no idea about anything. And they catch their trophy fish of their lifetime, you know, and they’re like so proud of it. And then they go out on social media and share it. And then they just get, you know, run over by everybody out there. And, and so that’s a tough one, right? Because it’s like, man, that person has no idea, right? But we’re trying to educate them. But then you bring on social media, which can be really negative sometimes. And so yeah, I think that’s the tough thing, right? How do you how do you take that person who’s brand new out there, who’s just getting started, you know, what’s the best way to get to them? 00:08:53 Sascha: Whether you’re brand new or like, you know, fished most of your life and you know, you’ve lost track of the number of fish you’ve caught, like we get it. Like people want photos of their catch, you know, if you’re on a trip of a lifetime, like, of course you want memories. So some of it’s just trying to think more like a fish and less, less like an angler, right? Like thinking about what their needs are. We’ve done a lot of work. We’ve done a lot of work with, like other nonprofits or groups that are working to teach fishing or introducing folks to fishing and, you know, so that they’ve started to, you know, you learn to cast, you learn to hook up, you learn to like bring the fish in and then like handling and best practices also becomes like one of the topics that anglers are learning about. So I think introducing it, the sooner you can do that, the better. But sometimes there’s just there’s some skill involved and that’s going to build over time, right? Like sometimes it’s hard to hold, especially if you’re talking about like kids with small hands, like trying to get their hands around a fish and hold it well can be challenging. So it’s just practice like any other part of angling is, you know, and we’ve all like, we’ve all had to go through that. So yeah. 00:10:20 Dave: The net is a good, I feel like I grew up not using a net in, you know, my whole life. And then eventually when I got into this, I started using nets, you know, more just because we were around a lot more, you know, people that had cool nets and stuff. But yeah, I feel like a net is a thing that definitely you almost have to have, right? Like you could land them without a net. What’s your take on that? Is a net a necessary item out there? 00:10:42 Sascha: I think it’s great for new anglers for sure just because of that, like trying to hold a fish. right? And you have like, you’re trying to think of a gazillion things when you’re learning. So once, if you can get a fish in a net, one thing anglers always want to do is then like pull the net out of the water and. 00:11:00 Dave: Oh, right. 00:11:01 Sascha: It’s just reminding folks like it’s in the net, you know, you can still keep the net in the water. 00:11:06 Dave: Exactly. 00:11:07 Sascha: So I think they’re super helpful just because you can then like calm down, figure out what needs to happen next. Some of the nets are so great that like, especially if you’re using barbless hooks, like the hook just comes out without you even having. 00:11:24 Dave: To like remove. 00:11:25 Sascha: The hook with a net. 00:11:26 Dave: Yeah. How does that happen? And I don’t even know that because it seems like when you land a fishing net, I mean, more times than not, the fly pops out and it’s amazing, right? Is that well, I guess we’re using Barbless too, but is that that’s part of the design of the net or what is that going on there? 00:11:40 Sascha: I actually don’t know. I haven’t talked to a net manufacturer to figure that out, but I think it’s some of that those silicone bags to like. Once you release the tension on the fly. Then the tip it like the silicone sticky enough that the tip, it kind of sticks to it and it just pulls it right out. Right. So it doesn’t work for you, which is fantastic. So like in terms of fish outcomes, net versus no net, it’s kind of mixed. Like you can obviously land a fish faster if you have a net. So the fish isn’t as exhausted, but then it’s also like greener. So there’s chances of it like flopping around in the net more. So we don’t for outcomes for the fish, we don’t see marked difference whether you bring it to hand or or in a net. So some of it’s just like ease of use, like what you’re accustomed to. And does the net enable you then to like release the fish quicker? 00:12:48 Dave: Yeah, that’s the whole thing. 00:12:49 Dave: Right, right. Yeah. 00:12:50 Dave: And for a, for a new angler, especially, it does, it usually does because they don’t have to touch it. Yeah. Get it out. You know, one of the other big parts of the discussion is water temperatures. You know, I think that that’s something that comes up a lot. I mean, you hear about the, I think sixty eight degrees Fahrenheit is kind of something you hear a lot about. Describe that. It sounds like you’re doing some work now on that. What is what should we know about water temperature? And I guess I’m always thinking again, we’re thinking maybe about trout because there’s a lot of different species, but maybe keep the focus on trout as we’re as we’re get. Unless you think it’s important to talk temperatures just overall. 00:13:24 Sascha: Yeah. No, I mean, trout I think is a good one because they’re so heavily fished in North America and there are cold water species. So, you know, we’re seeing the impacts of higher water temperatures on trout sooner than than we would for other species. So yeah, so there’s been this rule of thumb of sixty eight degrees out there for a long time, right? Like when the water hits sixty eight degrees, you should stop fishing. 00:13:51 Dave: Yeah. 00:13:52 Dave: Which is part of the law in a lot in some places. Right. Some states have. That’s just. 00:13:56 Sascha: Yeah. So if states have like a hoot owl regulation is what they called a lot of the times, you know, then it’s a little different state to state. Right. Not every state has one. But usually it’s like I think Montana is if it’s three consecutive days of over seventy three degree water. And so about two years ago, we started digging into kind of trying to figure out more about where this sixty eight degree rule came from. Right. And we looked at a lot of the science on water temperature for trout. And there is quite a bit out there. Right. We’ve been farming trout and hatcheries for a really long time. We know a lot about them, but then we started trying to dig in the literature around angling and water temperature. So what happens when you combine the two? And there was surprisingly little science that had been done, and most of it was pretty old. And so there’s definitely holes in the science that there needs to be more research done. But the other thing, what we found was really interesting. So usually I try to do this with visuals. 00:15:18 Dave: So all right. 00:15:20 Sascha: I’ll try to do an auditorium. 00:15:22 Dave: Maybe we could follow up with you at a later point and get some. Well, we could probably go to your site there. Just keep fish wet. Have some of this. 00:15:28 Sascha: Yes. Yeah, we’ve got a whole blog post on it. Um, on on temperatures. 00:15:33 Dave: What would that post be if we wanted to find it right now? How would. 00:15:35 Dave: We find. 00:15:36 Sascha: Uh, it’s under our blog series, which is called fin sites. And then I forget the actual title of the blog post, but it’s something like, you know, Trout and Warming Waters or it specifically says something about water temperature. 00:15:49 Dave: Yeah. Fishing for trout and warm warming waters. 00:15:52 Sascha: There you go. Fishing for trout and warming waters. Yeah. 00:15:55 Dave: Yeah. 00:15:55 Dave: All right, we got it. We got it now. Good. We’ll have a link in the show notes for that. 00:15:58 Sascha: Okay, great. Yeah. So what we found and so you can think about it like fish have a range. They’re cold blooded animals, right? So they have a range of temperatures that they can, they can survive. Right. You know, think about like, you know, a lower temperature below which they can’t survive in an upper threshold above which they can’t survive. And then smaller than that in there is like a range that they can survive angling. So when you get to either end, right close to the low or close to the high, even if they can survive in those water temperatures. The minute you start to add in angling, that’s an added stress, so they’re less likely to survive. So an analogy would be like, if you’ve got one hundred folks standing outside and it’s ninety degrees, they’re probably doing okay, right? Like you can keep those people outside for a while, but if you ask them all to go run a couple miles, like some of them aren’t going to do really well. And if you push them too hard, some of them might not make it. Um, so same for fish, right? Like even though they can survive those temperatures, you know, they’re probably like looking for cooler pockets of water or things like that. But when you start to add in angling, all of a sudden, like it changes their ability, their survival chances. So we call this kind of point, this where water temperature like it doesn’t it doesn’t really seem to affect survival from angling to all of a sudden, like it hits this threshold, it hits this point where then you start to see less fish surviving due to water temperature. We call this a angling threshold. And so this is the point at which something shifts for fish. They’re just they’re not as as they don’t tolerate the impacts of catch and release as well. So that is lower for most trout species than sixty eight degrees. So for like rainbow cutthroats and brook trout, that’s closer to sixty one degrees. So a little bit what we’re trying to do is reframe the messaging and try to get people to look at what temperature do trout start becoming affected by water temperature as opposed to like when you need to stop. So, and part of the reason for that is that like what? We don’t have enough science yet to figure out when that stopping point should be. And honestly, like it’s going to be different for different systems, like, you know, cut throat in like high mountain lakes. Maybe you should stop fishing at like sixty three degrees. But if you’re in a river that typically gets hot and those fish are acclimated to warmer temperatures, like maybe you can fish all the way up to sixty eight degrees, you know, or if it’s a like, you know, wild versus stocks, like there’s just all sorts of issues that come into this. So yeah, so we’re trying to reframe the discussion about like when you need to start paying attention to water temperature as opposed to when you should stop fishing. 00:19:37 Dave: Yeah, that makes sense. And like you said, the Montana seventy three degrees is even a little bit higher, right, than the sixty eight. How did that decision. I don’t know if you know how that got made. Why was it seventy three? Why not? Why isn’t it sixty eight over a three day period? 00:19:51 Sascha: Yeah. I’m not sure specifically the science that Montana is using for that. I know Colorado published dug into some of the water temperature stuff, and they published a paper like in two thousand and eight, I think it was where they were trying to figure out a little bit more about stress temperatures for the different species of freshwater fish they have all across the state. So I think what happened is, because we know there’s holes in the science, there isn’t enough about water temperature and angling. A lot of current hoot owl regulations are just are looking at like stress points for fish in general. 00:20:32 Dave: Yeah. 00:20:32 Dave: In general, they’re not getting as specific. That’s the interesting thing about the conversation because like you said it, it could depend regionally within the stream you’re in. Temp by day by, you know, there’s a lot of factors that. And that seems to be always the struggle, right? When you have a lot of factors that are involved. And now people, people can’t just say like, oh, it’s this one thing. It’s easy. It’s not, it sounds like this isn’t an easy thing. So now that brings in more confusion. And then you’ve got people out there, and then you also have the whole thing of people, their livelihoods, right? I mean, people fishing, there’s anglers, there’s people that like to fish, but then there’s guides. And if you, I imagine if you drop this down to sixty one degrees, you might be taking people out of being able to fish, right? Potentially. Like how do you, um, look at that, that concern where you’re dealing with people. And I’m sure you get pushback throughout the years from this sort of conversation. 00:21:20 Dave: Yeah. 00:21:21 Sascha: I mean, you know, and that’s the other piece of it is like, because there are so many variables, like if you start looking instead about what’s the water temperature at which fish become affected, right? Then, you know, let’s say you’re fishing for? I’m on the East Coast. Let’s say you’re fishing for brook trout on the east coast and the water is sixty two degrees. Then you can start. There’s other tools that you can use to start figuring out like, okay, are those fish actually being impacted? Um, you know, and what am I doing? So instead of just saying, oh, we hit the stopping point, we have to stop fishing for the day. You can like double down on using best practices. You can say like, okay, we’re not taking any more photos today because we know that any additional air exposure is going to be added stress to those fish. So you can start changing your behavior and not stop fishing necessarily, but to give those fish a better chance of survival and, and of, you know, to do well after they get released. So it, it also like gives people more options, right? Instead of like shutting things down when it reached a temperature. If even a little bit earlier, just people start paying more attention. It gives you more options for what you can do, right? 00:22:46 Dave: Oh that’s cool. So so what you’re saying here is that maybe, you know, the discussion has in the way I framed it is wrong. You know, it should be. Maybe we could frame this more as instead of shutting it down, there’s things we can do that actually might increase the chances of fishing, maybe fishing more if we change what we’re doing out there. Is that. 00:23:02 Dave: Exactly? 00:23:03 Dave: Yeah. That’s where you’re going to. That’s great. 00:23:05 Sascha: Yeah, absolutely. And there’s, you know, there’s other tools. There’s a set of reflex impairments that fisheries scientists have started using that can give some information about if a fish is stressed and they’re really easy to do. And so that’s even something that anglers and guides can use to make a more informed decision about when they need to stop fishing. So there’s a bunch of other pieces that you can like pull in to figure out what needs to happen and when you need to make that decision to get off the water or change to a warm water species. 00:23:43 Dave: Gotcha. 00:23:43 Dave: What would be if you had to, you know, if we’re listening now, what would be those things that say we’re out there, we’re heading to, you know, let’s just keep it on the brook trout. You’re going out there. What are the things we could do throughout the day to know, you know, to change our ways or, you know, like you talked about one maybe no photos. What are some of the other things we could do? 00:24:01 Sascha: Yeah. I mean, I still think carrying a thermometer is super important, right? Like knowing where the water temperature is. Like, I think that’s, that’s a great starting place, you know, doubling down on some of the other best practices, like how fast can you release the fish? Like if you’re not taking a photo, do you even need to net it? Do you even need to hold it? Like, can you just run your fingers down the leader and like, pop the hook out and release the fish without ever touching it? You know, those sorts of things make a huge difference. You know, if you’re pulling fish out of a big deep pool, which is probably colder water, like make sure you’re releasing the fish into the same big deep pool so that they can, they can recover faster in that, in that cold water. 00:24:54 Dave: Right, right. Yeah. Those are all pretty easy. So the thermometer could be just, you could have it there. I mean, even some of these thermometers, I know people have put it on their boots. So you can literally it’s kind of all it’s there. So you can just know right away what the temperature and then what the temperature is throughout the day. Right. That’s another. 00:25:08 Dave: Piece. Exactly. 00:25:09 Dave: Might warm up. Okay. Well, so that’s the, is that the big part of like, as you look ahead now with the temperature concerns, I mean, because it is a concern, you know, it’s not getting easier. We hear about these stories of brook trout. I’ve heard I’ve had guides on here talk about how, you know, it’s just it’s kind of the doom and gloom, right? Right. Things are things are it’s over. I mean, we got to get used to fishing for bass because things are. What’s your take on all that? It seems like it could be doom and gloom when you see what’s going on out there. 00:25:35 Sascha: Yeah, I mean, I do unfortunately, unfortunately, like I there’s a certain amount of that like, yeah, maybe, you know, we talk about sixty one for brook trout. Like maybe if it’s sixty three, sixty five, you can keep fishing. But if the water is seventy five, like you shouldn’t try and be trying to. Yeah, catch brook trout. So I do think finding other warm water species that you like to fish for is super important. I love smallies on a fly. Like that’s super fun. So I do think that’s going to be have to be part of it or, you know, being willing to shift your trip, being willing to like start your fishing day at five a m and being off the water by noon when those water temperatures heat up and, and supporting guides who make those choices because they’re doing it for what’s best for fish. So it’s super, it’s tough. And you know, I know some states this year, I think I’ve saw it more than I have in the past where, you know, states like Colorado, there were mandatory closures and then there were also voluntary closures on certain stretches of water where they’re saying like, okay, it hasn’t quite hit that mandated closure of the water, but we’re suggesting you don’t fish between, you know, noon and midnight or two p m and midnight on this stretch of the water because we know it’s getting really close. So paying attention to those things I think is helpful. 00:27:15 Dave: Well, you know, you got temperature. That’s obviously a huge part of the equation, but there’s some other things out there too, right? I mean, do you get into the other, you know, like barbless hooks, you know, hooking mortality, kind of all that, all the ends of this on catch and release and I mean, keep them wet is kind of, you know, focus, right? I mean, when you think about it, you’re thinking, okay, keep the fish wet, but are you involved in all the issues? 00:27:37 Sascha: Yeah. Yeah we are. Yeah. So we have a suite of best practices. They’re all science based. We have three principles. And those are the three things that anglers can do that make the most amount of difference to fish survival, and that are most within an angler’s control. So one of them is minimizing air exposure. Not surprising given our name. Um the other is to eliminate contact with dry surfaces. And so, you know, getting your hands wet before you hold on to a fish, like holding fish over the water, trying not to bring fish into a boat. Those sort of things are really important. And then the last principle is to reduce handling time. So anything you do between when you land a fish and release the fish, trying to make that time period as short as possible, whether that fish is in your hands or in a net, trying to get it back on its way and released as quickly as possible. So those are the three big ones. And then we have a lot of tips, and most of the tips are more specific actions either that support those three principles, or maybe there’s something that you don’t always encounter where you’re fishing. Like we recommend you don’t use lip gripping devices except on big toothy critters that you have no other choice. Right? So, um, you know, if you’re fishing for brook trout, you’re probably not thinking too much about using a lip gripper, right? 00:29:15 Dave: But you’re fishing for, like I said, northern Pike. 00:29:17 Sascha: Exactly. 00:29:18 Dave: five hundred they’ve got, we’ve been told, you know, the guide was, uh, Josh was like, hey, this fish has five hundred razor sharp teeth. And we’re like, damn, okay, I don’t want to touch that fish. 00:29:27 Dave: That’s. Yeah. You don’t want. 00:29:28 Sascha: To get near that mouth. So. Yeah. 00:29:31 Dave: Yeah. So you got a bunch. Yeah. This is great. So you got the three principles. Minimize air exposure, eliminate contact to dry surface. So that’s getting your hands wet. A big part of that. And then and then also reducing handling time. So just basically just getting it back in the water as soon as possible. What is the on the eliminating contact with dry surface? What does that do when you let’s just say you grab it with your dry hands. Is that like affect the scales? What is the impact that’s doing? 00:29:56 Sascha: Yeah. So, um, so all fish are covered with slime. Some species are slimier than others. And that slime has hydrodynamic properties, right. For to enable the fish to swim better, but also has a protection properties sort of like our skin, right. So if you get cut you’re more susceptible to getting an infection through that cut. Um, so same thing with fish slime. If you remove the slime. Fish are more susceptible to disease and infection, and fish can be particularly susceptible to fungal infections. So you’re just opening. When you’re removing that slime, you’re just increasing the chance of something. And just like our skin, like the slime will regrow. But it takes a little bit of time. 00:30:48 Dave: Yeah, yeah. That’s it. Okay. That’s awesome. And then some of the other tips here we talked about using barbless hooks. Uh, consider artificial baits, rubber nets. We talked about limit the use of the lip grip we talked about and carry the hook removers. I mean, I think that’s awesome, right? Having some sort of forceps because trying to go in with that fish and grab a fly, especially on a little trout with your hands is kind of crazy, right? So having a good. Do you have a list of, of gear types like forceps and things? Or do you just say, go get a pair of forceps because they’re not all equal, right. I mean, I’ve had forceps where I used it, but they didn’t even work. Right. I bought. 00:31:20 Dave: Them. 00:31:20 Sascha: Yeah, yeah. It’s so the, the, um, we’ve done a little bit of science are partnered with some scientists who are doing work on like hook removal tools. And it’s really interesting. A lot of what it comes down to is just personal preference and ease of use. So whatever tool you have practiced with and you like to use and makes things go faster is the best one for you to use. So whether it’s hemostats or pliers or forceps or, you know, like lamps and makes a catch and release tool, um, you know, there’s a lot of folks that I know that like make their own out of a coat hanger and wine cork. 00:32:05 Dave: Oh, wow. 00:32:05 Dave: Coat hanger. Okay. 00:32:06 Sascha: Yeah. 00:32:07 Sascha: Like whatever it is that works best for you, that’s the one you should be using. 00:32:12 Dave: Yeah. That’s awesome. 00:32:13 Sascha: Yeah. 00:32:13 Sascha: So, you know, testing some out and figuring out what you like is great. But yeah, when it comes to like tiny flies having something better than, than your fingers. Yeah. 00:32:25 Dave: Yeah. 00:32:26 Dave: You gotta have something. Yeah. Definitely. The grip and grin has always been, you know, especially social media. That’s why your social media movement works so well when you got going, because, you know, there was some negative stuff about people just getting just hammered out there. But I mean, it really gets people thinking. And now people are thinking, man, do you even show a fish out of the water? Right. A lot of I think there’s a lot of brands out there that aren’t even doing that. It’s like they have to keep them in the water because I think it’s part of it is just education. I think it’s been great because there’s probably some people that could take him out of the water and they know how to handle fish, and maybe they wouldn’t hurt him as much. But I think it’s just letting people know because there’s a lot of people still right now that don’t know about keep em wet, right? And they have to be educated. So that’s why social media is in a good way is powerful, right? 00:33:07 Sascha: Yeah, yeah. I mean, for us, it was like instrumental in getting things started. 00:33:13 Dave: How did you start that out initially when you got going? Did you did you have a plan? You were thinking, man, this Instagram is this is going to work. We gotta, we gotta let you know. We gotta people are gonna get hammered and it’s going to be part of the deal. Like, how did you look at that? Did you know what was going to happen when you started? 00:33:28 Sascha: No, not totally. I mean, you know, it came from like a place of I mentioned a little bit of frustration earlier, you know, but also like just wanting, you know, you can only look at so many Griffin grin photos. Like the fish doesn’t usually look good in those. 00:33:46 Sascha: Photos. 00:33:47 Sascha: Right? 00:33:48 Dave: Well, and the best photographers too. And I just saw a picture of Brian O’Keefe you had on there on one of your photos. I mean, the amazing ones when they when they tell you how to take a good photo, it’s really to take a different angle, something that people don’t see. And those are always the best. And the grip and grin is just like, man, we’ve seen them. We’ve seen the grip and grin, right? It’s like, it’s just kind of it’s been done too many times. 00:34:06 Sascha: Exactly, exactly. The fish isn’t going to look any better, you know, than the last eighty thousand fish. So yeah, so I mean, that’s the other piece of it. Like it’s been overdone. Like we’ve seen a gazillion of them. So I think there’s much more interesting ways that you can take a photo of a fish and make it be really beautiful and more representative of like, what that animal is like instead of being like, held in your hands. They look better when they’re in the water. They look better if they’re wet. 00:34:40 Dave: So I know it’s kind of crazy to think when you look at it, because it’s, it’s this kind of crazy thing about fishing, you know, especially with what we’re doing because we’re catching for the most part, we’re catching not to eat the fish. I mean, that makes sense because if you’re trying to put food on the table for your family, of course, that’s there’s nothing more visceral than that, right? But, but we’re literally catching fish and releasing them and we’re putting fish through pain. I mean, ultimately, right? We’re putting them through pain to have this. And it’s in a lot of ways, sometimes I think about that. It’s kind of it’s strange in a little in a lot of ways, right? Because it’s like, wow, we’re catching fish. And then you look at the fish like, well, they’re not really enjoying the whole thing. You know what I mean? So I don’t know, how do you do you think about that at all? The fish itself as a creature and what it’s feeling stuff like that. 00:35:21 Sascha: I do. 00:35:21 Sascha: Yeah. Um, I was talking to somebody this about this the other day, like, you know, with fisheries just be better off if we or fish just be better off if we stop fishing for them, you know, and I think, uh, so there’s two parts of it, like do fish feel pain is actually a hugely contentious and debated issue in fisheries science. Yeah. So there’s one faction that says like, yes, fish feel pain. And then there’s this other side that says like, so pain is hugely subjective, right? Even in humans, like what’s, you know, on a scale of one to ten, what’s like a six for me might be a two for you. 00:36:07 Dave: Totally. And like a bee sting, you know, you get stung by a bee. Some people that’s like, no big deal. Some people are going to swell up and maybe stop breathing. 00:36:14 Sascha: Right, right. So studying pain in general, even like with humans that can talk to you Is is hard. Like it’s challenging. And with fish, part of what we think is going on is that they don’t actually have the receptors in their brain to feel pain. The same way that we think of pain, like they’re feeling the stimulus for sure. Right? Like you’re hooking them in the mouth, like they’re feeling something, but it’s not necessarily pain the way we think of pain. So and we can’t ask fish so that. 00:36:51 Dave: No, no, we can’t. 00:36:52 Dave: That’s not yet. Not yet. 00:36:54 Dave: At least. Right. 00:36:55 Dave: Maybe the AI’s coming. Right? 00:36:57 Sascha: Right. 00:36:58 Sascha: Uh, yeah. So that’s one side of it is like what’s actually happening for the fish. And then the other is like, okay, so should we just should, should we all stop fishing? Like if it’s not for food, right? If we’re not trying to put dinner on the table, should we even be doing this? And I like the ducks unlimited example, write that, like Ducks Unlimited has done more to preserve wetlands in North America than any other organization. 00:37:28 Dave: That’s right. 00:37:28 Sascha: And they’re a hunting. 00:37:29 Dave: Organization. 00:37:30 Dave: And they’re killing and they’re killing the same birds that they’re protecting. 00:37:32 Dave: Yeah. 00:37:33 Sascha: And, you know, just like fish can’t tell us if they’re feeling pain. Like they can’t fight for the rivers. They can’t fight. They can’t advocate for themselves. And I think anglers are really important in advocating for wild spaces and rivers and lakes and oceans in this country. So I think there are a lot of like conservation benefits that come from allowing people to, to catch fish. I do think it’s naive to think we don’t have any impact on them. 00:38:05 Dave: Well, and. 00:38:05 Dave: That’s what’s great about having groups like yours out there is that you’re educating people so they’re understanding how to do it the right way and decrease. You know, there’s some impacts. You catch a fish, there’s going to be some mortality on that. 00:38:16 Dave: Oh yeah. 00:38:16 Dave: Right. You’re an angler, you’re going to kill some fish probably over the year. Right? And there’s and that’s a whole nother conversation. There is like, wow, what percentage of these fish that you don’t catch correctly are dying? That even though you release them and they go away, right. Some of them are going to die. 00:38:30 Sascha: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there’s like, you just it’s unavoidable, right? You know, think of it even like deep hooking a fish, like you can do everything, you know, and there’s ways that you can like decrease the chances of it. But like sometimes a fish is just going to swallow the hook and there’s nothing you can do about it. 00:38:48 Dave: Yeah. 00:38:48 Dave: He cut off the line. Well, and Barbless is another good thing that you have in your thing, right? I mean, you cut off the well, if it’s hooked deep, instead of ripping it out and making it bleed, you just cut it off and hope that maybe that barbless fly comes out eventually, right? That’s probably the best thing you could do in that situation. 00:39:02 Sascha: It is. 00:39:02 Sascha: Yep. Um, there’s been a couple cool studies done on like ability of fish to get hooks out on their own and it’s amazing. I mean, and you think about like what fish eat usually it’s like hard, crunchy, spiky bugs, right? 00:39:19 Dave: So totally. 00:39:20 Sascha: So they’re used to dealing with with spikes and thorns and, you know, stuff. And, and those hooks usually work their way out and either regurgitate them or like it actually just passes right through their digestive system. 00:39:34 Dave: That’s great. 00:39:35 Dave: Is barbless is another big issue. Right. I’m sure in some areas is that, um, it seems like that’s just pretty standard. Like why would you need to use a barbed hook? It seems like if you’re, you know, how again, educate, you know, how to land a fish. Barb. You can land just as many fish with barbless hook. Is there anything new on the Barbless kind of question there? 00:39:53 Sascha: Yeah, it’s. 00:39:54 Sascha: The science behind it, and there’s been quite a bit on that topic. The science behind it mostly comes down to it’s way faster to remove a barbless hook than a barbed hook. There are some benefits like it does do less damage. It changes mortality a little bit, but a lot of it is just ease of hook removal. And personally, like I would much rather dig a barbless hook out of my own hand when I hook myself than a barbed hook. 00:40:28 Dave: That’s right. That’s the biggest thing. 00:40:30 Dave: Yeah. Especially if you’re, I’m sure the guides, that’s what they say, right? That’s a huge part of it. 00:40:34 Sascha: Yeah. Yeah. 00:40:36 Sascha: I just don’t, I don’t want to try to because I’m gonna do it right. Like I’m gonna hook something that I don’t want to. And then it’s way. 00:40:44 Sascha: Easier. 00:40:45 Dave: To do it with. 00:40:45 Sascha: Barbless hook. 00:40:46 Sascha: So yeah. And whether you’re like pinching those barbs down is fine. There’s some companies making really great barbless hooks now as well, and barbless flies. So there’s definitely more and more options. 00:41:01 Dave: Definitely. 00:41:01 Dave: It’s all evolving, right? It’s and including the photos, the taking of the photos, what is your, you know, if somebody they’re fishing on their own solo, do you have any recommendations on if that person caught the fish of a lifetime and wanted to get a photo? How would they do that? 00:41:16 Sascha: Yeah. 00:41:17 Sascha: So some of the coolest photos I’ve seen when you don’t have a buddy to help you out is if you hold the fish by the base of the tail in one hand and kind of having it like pointing away from you, and then you take a photo kind of down the body of the fish. And so maybe its back is out of water a little bit. Those look cool. I’m not a fantastic photographer. So. So this like, this is not people like Brian O’Keefe are much better at explaining the technical side of this, but getting low in the water definitely helps. And then I’ve seen some really great net shots of even just a fish in a net. 00:41:59 Dave: Oh really? So net. Yeah, even a net shot can be cool. You can actually get it. 00:42:02 Sascha: Yeah, yeah. 00:42:03 Sascha: Um, or like tipping the net. So the fish is swimming out over the edge of the net. That makes. 00:42:08 Sascha: Really good video. 00:42:10 Dave: Right? 00:42:10 Dave: Yeah. That’s another cool thing you can do too nowadays, right? With the video, you can actually just video, start your video and then get photos off of that video later on. Right. 00:42:18 Sascha: Exactly, exactly. Or just, you know, like a quick three second clip. 00:42:23 Dave: Just hold on to it and go. Yeah, yeah. 00:42:26 Dave: But, but like you said, the key is to not sit there for minutes of trying to get the photo. It’s literally get your one photo and just, just go and let it go. And that’s why the video might be cool because you can just get a bunch of video, you know, in a few seconds and then just release. Because the sooner what you’re saying is, the more, the faster we can get that fish in the water, the better off the fish is going to be. 00:42:43 Sascha: Yep. 00:42:44 Sascha: Yeah. For sure. You know, there’s a lot of talk about like reviving fish. 00:42:49 Dave: Yeah. 00:42:49 Dave: Like, yeah, you get a fish that, that you, you played for a while. It was a massive fish. Right. And it took you forever. I mean, sometimes you hear these stories about, I mean, people taking, you know, whatever the extremes are tarpon, right? We spent eight hours fishing for tarpon landing this fish or something. That’s the extreme. But just just in general, fishing for trout. It takes you a while to get the fish in. Now it’s really tired. It seems like you want to make sure it’s, you know, good to go so you don’t let it go and it turns upside down, right? And you’re saying there’s a there’s a time where most of the time we should just let it go and fend for itself. 00:43:20 Sascha: Yeah. 00:43:20 Sascha: I mean, our rule of thumb is that if a fish can swim, it’s going to recover better on its own than whatever you’re going to do to it. And we have a little bit of science to back that up as well. Like there’s been some science done on actually, like trying to compare different ways of recovering fish, like just holding them into the current, moving them back and forth, trying that. Figure eight method. If you’ve ever seen somebody try to do that, where like swimming a fish in a figure eight in your hands. And really none of that made a difference. Like it wasn’t harming fish. But if a fish can swim. Yeah. Like it’s, it’s better off choosing where it wants to recover instead of you just holding on to it for longer. If it can’t swim, like if it does go belly up, then that’s a different situation, then it might be worth, you know, holding on to it and trying to get more water flowing through its mouth over its gills. But but if it can swim, just let it go. 00:44:23 Dave: Yeah. Just let it go. 00:44:24 Dave: Perfect. Awesome. Well, there’s a ton of I know there’s more. We could probably dig in. This is kind of a good high level. Um, I want to take it out of here in a little bit here with our rapid fire round, but. But I just want to check with you first before we start to take it out. Is there anything we’re missing here on any of the issues you want to make sure people are thinking about as we as we get out there? 00:44:43 Sascha: No, I think this has been a really good conversation. It was fun to dig into some of the water temperature stuff. And yeah, this is great. 00:44:51 Dave: Good. 00:44:52 Dave: Okay. Well, yeah, we’ve got a couple easy ones that we always love doing our rapid fire here. Um, and, and the cool thing is we’ve got a, you know, a boot camp or fly fishing boot camp, which is really cool. It’s basically like a summit where we’re bringing together some great speakers to cover a lot of issues in fly fishing. You know, talk about a lot of the great stuff. So we’re going to just talk about our fly fishing boot camp, which is coming up here in a couple of months to kick this off. But we mentioned it just for you, the fishing, like what do you what’s your species? Are you I know you’re on the east coast. Do you have a particular species? You really when you have time, you go for. 00:45:25 Sascha: Oh, so I lived in the Bahamas for almost ten years. Um, so a bonefish flat is my happy place. Like I a sandy flat that I can wade for hours like that is. That’s where I’d rather be than anywhere else in the world. 00:45:44 Dave: How do you describe it? 00:45:45 Dave: Because you’re in Massachusetts, right? You’re in an area that doesn’t have well, maybe you you have some flats up there, but is it quite different where you’re at now? 00:45:52 Sascha: Yeah. I mean, I’m, I’m Western mass. So like, I’m not even right on the ocean. Um, so I’ve got mostly like trout streams and then some warm water, you know, fishing as well. I do try to get out to the cape to fish for striped bass, and there’s some some decent flats on the Cape where you can fish for striped bass, which is fantastic as well. Um, but yeah, it’s a little, it’s a little further now for me to, to get on to a. 00:46:20 Dave: Bonefish. 00:46:20 Sascha: Flat than. 00:46:22 Dave: It used to be. Yeah. 00:46:23 Dave: You hear a lot about the, the striped yellow striped bass, how there’s this following of people. Right. It’s like just as hardcore as any of these species. And and you’re kind of there, but you’re in. What’s the closest city or what city are you in? 00:46:36 Sascha: I’m in Amherst, mass. 00:46:38 Dave: Oh, okay. 00:46:38 Sascha: Um, yeah. 00:46:39 Dave: Awesome. 00:46:40 Dave: And is that where you, uh, you grew up or where did you grow up? 00:46:43 Sascha: No, I grew up in California, in Northern California, and grew up fishing. Didn’t do a ton of fly fishing, actually, until I moved to the Caribbean and went out with somebody actually just to like hang out and watch fishing for bonefish for the first time. And I was like, oh, this is it. Like, this is, this is what I want to be doing. 00:47:06 Dave: That’s right. 00:47:07 Dave: So have you travel. So it sounds like starting in California. Did you follow your kind of the fisheries work? Is that what took you around to different locations? 00:47:15 Dave: Yep. 00:47:15 Sascha: Yeah. Um it was so yeah, ended up spending, as I said, like almost ten years in the Bahamas, um, working on bonefish and a bunch of other, uh, fisheries down there. Yeah. And then moved, moved to New England. Didn’t think I’d ever live in a place that was cold after after the Bahamas. 00:47:36 Dave: But, uh. Yeah. Is it is it still cold there? 00:47:38 Dave: You got climate change? Of course. But what are the winters like in where you’re at in Massachusetts? 00:47:42 Sascha: You know, it snows. So like that’s my. 00:47:45 Dave: That’s cold. 00:47:46 Sascha: Of cold. 00:47:47 Dave: That’s cold. Exactly. 00:47:49 Sascha: Yeah. 00:47:49 Dave: Cool. 00:47:50 Dave: That’s awesome. Good. Well, and you mentioned well, we mentioned I just want to ask that, you know, we talked about Pike, Northern Pike. Have you done much research on do you know much about Pike and maybe the muskie? The same. I guess it depends on whether you’re in cold or warm water. But are those fish pretty, pretty hardy fish? Are they more in the hardy or hardier, closer to carp than they are closer to salmon. Trout. 00:48:10 Sascha: Oh. Um. I’m trying to dig into my. So temperature is definitely big, right? Especially when you’re talking about muskie, for sure. Temperature is a big impact. I can’t remember all the details. 00:48:26 Dave: And we could follow up on this a little bit, but I kind of because I just got off this trip and I mean, we were at a place that it was unbelievable. I mean, we were catching like forty four trophy muskie, you know, all day long. Right. And so we that’s amazing. And we caught lots of them, you know, lots of. So we were and again, I didn’t touch the fish. The. Josh the guide was doing a great job getting him in. But you know, they were coming out of the water. We were in a boat, we were taking a picture and then putting them back. And he was really good at it. But I was just thinking like, wow, okay, would it be better if we were actually in the water? And again, I don’t think it would have been worse because we probably would have been handling the fish. And I don’t know, it just seemed like I was thinking about it. Like, you know, we definitely weren’t keeping them wet the whole time, you know? 00:49:02 Sascha: Yeah. I mean, when you’re fishing for a boat, Like there’s just an added layer of complexity, right? That you’re trying to figure out like how to deal with those fish, right? So it depends on like how stable the boat is, how high are the sides? Um, you know, all that stuff. 00:49:20 Dave: So the boat adds a whole nother level of complexity to this thing. Whether you’re, you could be on a Stillwater lake, right? Or anywhere with a boat and it makes it harder. 00:49:28 Sascha: Yeah. Yeah. And then like, if you’re in like a drift boat, like, can you even pull over, you know, like there’s all sorts of pieces of it. So I mean, that’s why it’s like minimize their exposure, right? You know, if you can keep it to like 10s or less, that’s usually best. But we get there are situations where like, you got to take the fish out of the water to do what needs to be done to a certain extent. So, and most species are tolerant of that to. 00:49:57 Sascha: A certain extent. 00:49:59 Dave: You probably see it. Do you think it’s good just because some brands out there are literally don’t take fish out of the water. There’s no photos on their Instagram of any fish. They’re all kind of in the water or near it, you know? Are there any good photos out there that are fish out of the water? Is that something? And how do you deal with that when you’re the person that sees that photo? How do you talk to people online or, you know, what’s your advice there? Because it seems like it’s messy. 00:50:20 Sascha: Yeah. So we have a, I mean, we have a internal like set of standards for fish photos. Um, and then a couple other, like a couple brands have kind of gone off our, used our standards for their stuff. Our standard for fish out of the water is that it has to be over the water. 00:50:39 Sascha: Okay. 00:50:40 Sascha: And visibly dripping wet. 00:50:42 Dave: And visibly dripping. Right. 00:50:44 Sascha: So you can, you can see the drips coming off of it, you know, that it’s been. 00:50:48 Sascha: It’s, it’s kind. 00:50:49 Sascha: Of a signal, right? 00:50:50 Sascha: That’s yeah, like. 00:50:51 Sascha: That’s probably been less than 10s. Um, if you’re holding right. 00:50:55 Dave: And you could do that on a boat too, you could literally, you could pull in a trout on a boat, you could have it above the water dripping and take the picture right on the side of the boat. You can do that. Although I think about again, back to our example with Pike at forty four inch Northern Pike. That would be tough to do. 00:51:09 Sascha: It’s tough. Yeah, yeah, there are definitely some cases where like it’s hard. 00:51:14 Dave: Yeah. I think that goes back to it’s like, and it was deep. So it’s not like we could jump out and we were in a place where, you know, we had doubles on, you know, and then we went down and we caught lake trout swinging for lake trout. And it was a similar deal where there’s no way we’re jumping out in the river there to, you know, so again, yeah, every it’s like you said, a case by case, right? Every, everything is you gotta, it’s not a one size fits all on any of this. 00:51:36 Sascha: Yeah. For sure. And so, you know, that’s where like figuring out what are the tools that you need to have that are going to enable you to do what you need to do with fish, you know, to use those best practices. So even though, like, I mean, we talked about nets, like, but, you know, most of these things like don’t require you to use even a net. Like you can do all the best practices without them. But, but for sure there’s some tools that’ll help you use the best practices and do a better job with how you’re handling those fish. 00:52:08 Dave: Awesome. Well, Sasha, I think we could leave it there. This has been a great conversation. Um, we will send everybody out to keep fish dot org if they want to follow up and learn more. And we’ve got a bunch of you got a bunch of great resources. So we’ll definitely be doing that today. And yeah, hopefully we can follow up with you and keep up with you and get some new science as, as you move ahead and, and talk to you on the next one. 00:52:28 Sascha: Sounds good. Thank you so much. It was great to be on your podcast. 00:52:32 Dave: All right. Big takeaway today is to grab your thermometer, wet your hands, shorten the handling time, and think about what happens after you let that fish go. Hope this episode helped you and, and would love for you to share this out. If you know anybody who might be interested, new to fishing, maybe could use a little bit of reminders on this, please share this episode this week. That’s the best way to support this podcast. If you want to take this conversation deeper, you can go to Web fly Swing Pro, that’s web flying dot com slash pro. Our group. were extending these conversations. We’re connecting with other nonprofits. The best chance to connect with the community is there. We got our big fly fishing boot camp coming up, uh, not too far away. We’re just building up right now. We’ve got some great speakers. We’re gonna have twenty of some of the best speakers in the country going live at our fly fishing boot camp. You can go to wet fly dot com slash bootcamp and you can get more information there. Uh, a couple other quick ones before we get out of here. Uh, we do have an amazing episode tomorrow. Phil Roy is back. He’s going to be going deep into strike indicator techniques. You don’t want to miss this one. This is an epic episode. I think Phil approaches two hours on this one. And you know, Phil’s solo episodes are the best. So stay tuned for that if you want your Stillwater goodness. And, uh, and we also have the dry fly school we’re launching later this month. Uh, we’re heading out to the Missouri again, if you’re interested in learning more about the dry fly school that’s coming up right away. Lots of good stuff as we approach the fall. Uh, if you haven’t checked in with me for a while, always love to hear from listeners. You can send me an email Dave at web dot com. It always makes my day when I see an email from somebody that’s new or I haven’t talked to in a while, just let me know maybe where you’re coming from and, and what you’re interested in learning about this year. And I’ll make sure to, uh, to put together that for you as we move forward. And I just want to thank you again for stopping in and listening all the way to the very end here. And I hope you’re having a great, a great morning afternoon. Maybe it’s evening and you’re, uh, you’re getting ready to, uh, get going for the evening. Maybe you’re settling down right now. Uh, listen to a podcast, taking some notes. Uh, if you are. I appreciate you for stopping in all the way till the end here, and we will look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Talk to you then. 00:54:42 Speaker 6: Thanks for listening to the Wet Fly Swing Fly Fishing show. For notes and links from this episode, visit Wet Fly swing dot com.