Flossing for the better of fish???

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SNDSLGR
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I have never fished where guys were flossin and to be honest, OFF is the first place I even heard of it. Now this seemingly knowledgeable angler is promoting it for the good of the fish. Obviously his intent seems good and different from the dirtbags we read about so often flossin with corkies, but is the result different?
 
I don't understand how you could "floss" when trolling. I guess if you knew where a group of fish was you could just troll through them hoping to snag one. Personally I don't care if its legal in AK, or wherever, its still SNAGGING and its still UNFAIR to the fish. I'm not saying that flossing is easy, I'm sure there is quite a bit of skill involved, but there is quite a bit of skill involved to shoot a deer in a spotlight at 200yds, but that doesn't make it OK.
 
While he's using the term flossing, it's not from my understanding of it. The fish are biting the offering but by having the hooks 'hanging back' they get hooked on the outside of the mouth.

It's a foul hooked fish, nothing more nothing less.
 
I never knew how flossing could work until yesterday when I saw just how many fish can be in one spot.
 
In parts of AK (if not all), you can "legally snag" fish. If its hooked into the mouth from the outside, its legal.
 
That isn't really flossing, but it technically is illegal to retain any fish hooked with that method down here in OR..
Flossing is what most of the people below faraday or at the bowling alley are doing with their 4-6+ ft leaders.

In AK they just look the other way since on most of the small streams it has become "the norm". No big deal, everyone gets way too twisted come coho season.
 
im not the least bit ashamed to be a master flosser, but in ak we only do it for sockeye that just don,t bite once they leave the salt, also, its dificult to do it without using a flyrod.... take one 6 wt rod, a heavy sinktip ( this eliminates the illegal weight forward of the fly ) and a 4 ft leader with a russian river bucktail and cast qaurter upstream with no line mending, never jerk.... you feel a tug and gently lift the rod tip, reel in your fish and if its hooked outside let it go, inside hook ... keeper. I have been chastized by guys drifting eggs for kings and steelhead who say its unethical and cheezy..... and roe or worms arent? flossing is an art and a very effective way to catch sockeye..... and can be done ethicly if one wishes.
 
halibuthitman said:
im not the least bit ashamed to be a master flosser, but in ak we only do it for sockeye that just don,t bite once they leave the salt, also, its dificult to do it without using a flyrod.... take one 6 wt rod, a heavy sinktip ( this eliminates the illegal weight forward of the fly ) and a 4 ft leader with a :naughty: and cast qaurter upstream with no line mending, never jerk.... you feel a tug and gently lift the rod tip, reel in your fish and if its hooked outside let it go, inside hook ... keeper. I have been chastized by guys drifting eggs for kings and steelhead who say its unethical and cheezy..... and roe or worms arent? flossing is an art and a very effective way to catch sockeye..... and can be done ethicly if one wishes.

aint buying it... sorry man, if they dont bite i dont target them..:naughty:
 
Region by region is different

Region by region is different

I am definitely not an authority on soooo many things,including most fishing techniques. That being said...it just seems to me that there are many "acceptable" techniques in different areas of the country. What is totally offensive to Oregon fisher folk could be and probably is totally acceptable in another region. We can ill afford to be snobs and snub a method we are either uncomfortable or unfamiliar with,can we? Please,don't flex the "moral muscle" by stating that if you were raised in an area where flossing was an acceptable practice or using a spear and net that you wouldn't be out on the water because it offended you. If it were acceptable to catch a big fatty with ANY method other than the ones we grew up with in Oregon,you wouldn't really use those methods? My cousins in Illinois are always going after turtle and frogs and love it. They use these primitive looking spears that sure as heck look sinister to me. But,they are totally legal in that region. If they spear a fish,they keep it too. Would you troll along with a trident spear and take home the prize here? If it were legal and acceptable,you better bet your bobber I would. :D Of course,Autofisher would have to take the wriggling critter OFF for me....:confused: :lol:
Just my own slanted two cents worth....
 
First, sockeye do bite, they troll for them in Lake Washington every year and they are caught by the hundreds. I would not simply "floss" fish just because I can not make them bite. They ate something and there has to be something to get their attention to get them to bite. Chum eat krill and I can make them try to eat an orange fly ,eggs and yarn.

So called experts say a salmon does not "bite" ANYTHING anymore once they hit fresh water? If they are simply hitting out of anger or instinct from a trigger to protect their nests from egg steelers then no fish we catch "bites". Personally I don't believe a fish simply stops trying to eat just because it supposedly can not do so after doing it for 2-4 years but all the same, if it is true...............what is "ethical" now? I have SEEN Coho, Chinook and Steelhead both bite to try and eat bait AND pick up a bait to move it away from where they are and then drop it. No one will ever tell that any of them do not at least TRY to eat after entering fresh water.

They tried to change the laws here to make it from the inside out only, I will fight it with every method I know of and every fisher I can get to fight it. If a salmon hits a spinner and you just happen to hook it from the outside in does that mean it it did NOT try to eat it?

I have a fly, a casting rod, and a technique that works oh so well done so many different ways. I can fish this fly legally and hook 9/10 fish inside the mouth. I can add a little leader and add a little weight and hook 50% outside the mouth but in front of the gill plates, still legal here in Washington, the other 50% still bite it. I can also rig it up and fish it so I can hook a fish 9/10 casts if there are more than 10 fish in any given hole, some legal, most snagged.

"Flossing" is an interesting way to fish, I doubt I will ever do it but still interesting and I am referring to flossing as simply running a line through their mouth to hook them. After all there are those that get to use GILL NETS. Is like another forum I am on. There is a reservoir that you are allowed to not only snag but dip net, drop net, throw net, spears, buckets, use a line with 20+ hooks on a heavy ropes to snag as many fish as possible as fast as possible. WHY? Because the fish are so thick at one spillway that the species they need to survive can't because of everything else getting in the way. There are some species in there that are invasive but the rest are simply too prolific and need to be controlled. Maybe it would be better if fisheries simply put a big net in and netted all the fish and sold them instead of letting fishers get them to feed their families and/or friends.

Now let me add this too this subject. There is a company that designed and tested a method of catching rainbow trout in Canada so that the hook was not swallowed so deep it killed every fish you caught. The bead is rigged 4-6 inches ABOVE the hook and the fish is more often than not hooked OUTSIDE of the mouth. This is specifically done to increase survival rates of released fish. Is it "flossing"? No, the fish hit the lure/bait/egg/whatever. Just because they were hooked from the outside in doesn't change the FACT it was "FISHED" for and not snagged. If I can make this work for summer run steelhead or any other fish you can bet I will use the technique because it is still legal to keep a fish hooked outside in here and it is a lot less stress to a fish to NOT have a hook in their gullet when you cut the line to let them go. Let alone them bleeding to death because the fight tore apart their insides from a swallowed hook.

Oh, BTW, there is a canal in Eastern Washington where the last I checked it is still legal to hunt Carp with bow or crossbow. It is some of the funnest "fishing" I have ever done. The carp are collected and used to feed the next years plants.

Deer hunting with shotguns, hunting varmints with blow guns, doe/cow in heat scent while bucks/bulls are in rut, piles of salmon to bait bears, a tape of a wounded animal to draw in a cougar, so many more examples of what one might consider unethical but is legal and supported in so many other states.

If it was ever proven to me that a fish will not try to EAT my offering then I will not fish for them anymore. If I can not MAKE a fish take a swing at my lure/bait/whatever then it can go along it's merry way and propagate the species.

I agreed with Raincatcher, if you don't like it, don't do it. We live in a country where a state can make laws to fit the needs of the people who live there. If we don't like the laws enough, we move somewhere that we like them better. Yes, we sometimes think that federal laws overstep those bounds but do we want laws made for all of us based on one state and what they all think is ethical???? I DON'T!!!!!!!!!
 
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I personnaly understand what he is promoting. Its not "flossing" in the traditional sense. I run "stinger Hooks" on all my plunking rigs..especially eggs. I catch tons of fish in the inside corner of the mouth allowing me to release a late winter steelie with minimal wear and tear. Or a springer I might not want to tag (i.e. Naitives) to breed and not die. I might suggest he find a more user friendly term than flossing.....This Idea will go down as just bad marketing.
 
See now here is someething more to the whole "Flossing" thing. A lot of what drifting is doing and a good reason it works best when the fish are on the move, is because while they are moving (or holding for that matter) most people know and are hoping that the fish is going to breath in what we are drifting downstream by them. Now if you ask me that sounds as bad as "flossing", your hoping and waiting for them to suck it in and getting your gear in the "vortex" and when that happens you set the hook. This was told to me by someone a lot of you look to for advise on here. That doesn't seem much different then using a long line and hoping to get the line to go in the mouth and then set the hook. The only diff I see in that is the inside or outside hook because either way you are hoping to get it in the fish mouth, either by the normal action of the fishies mouth open and closing (rather holding or moving) or sucking the gear in to the vortex while breathing. So thats not the fish striking or eating, just a humans dum luck at the right time and place. Same would be said for back bouncing, bouncing something towards a fish that is trying to move up stream hoping to bounce it in the mouth.

Don't take this the wrong way I run no longer then 30" leader and yes to some that is to long but I have learned and been told that you need to get your offerings away from the lead so it looks normal to the fish. You want to see something that should be wrong in fishing? Well go look for the thread with the people snagging the duck bill fish (I think thats what they were) now that is something that shouldn't be but because it is allowed where it was taking place it's ok and only ok because the law says it's ok.

Anyways before I go on with this for to long I need to get ready to go out and try to get some fish today so thats my two cents. Good luck all
CJ
 
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Shucks, couldn't make it to OR this year. Right now its koke season here in CO, meaning they are schooling up at the lake/reservoir inlets for spawning runs up the rivers/streams. Since these fish have other imperatives besides feeding, the preferred traditional method of catching em is snagging, not with a mouth suck little hook but a big weighted treble designed to spear a koke any which way. I won't do it, but its the accepted way to put salmon on the table over here.
 
How is this even fishing? "Hey, I snagged a fish the other day..." Wow!:shock:
 

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