Handling fish without wrecking your hands
Your hands take more damage on the water than any other part of you. Not from one dramatic injury, but from a season of small cuts, line burns and sun that never quite heals before the next trip.
Three things that get you
Gill plates and the edge of an operculum will open a finger the way a razor does, and you usually do not feel it until you see the water go pink. Teeth are the obvious one, but on the Gulf it is more often a jaw full of small backwards-facing rasps that take the skin off a thumb over a long day of trout.
Line is the sneaky one. A leader wrapped around a bare hand while a fish makes one more run cuts deeper than anything with a fin on it.
Support the weight, do not hang it
A horizontal hold with one hand under the belly is easier on your hands and far easier on the fish. Hanging a heavy fish vertically by the jaw puts the whole weight on its jaw joint and puts your fingers exactly where the teeth are.
Wet your hands first. A dry hand takes the slime coat off the fish and grips worse, which is a bad trade in both directions.
What gloves change
A fishing glove is not about warmth on this coast. It is grip when everything is wet, a layer between your fingers and a gill plate, and coverage on the backs of the hands, which is where the sun does its quiet damage.
The backs of the hands are on the top of a rod, in full sun, all day, and they are the first place sunscreen sweats off. They are also where most anglers first notice sun damage years later.
Release it like you want to catch it again
Keep it in the water while you unhook where you can, minimise air time, and put it back facing into the current so water moves over its gills. In warm Gulf water in August a fish held up for a two minute photo session often does not swim off the same.
The short version
- Wet your hands before you touch a fish.
- Support the belly, never hang a heavy fish by the jaw.
- Never wrap leader around a bare hand.
- Gloves on before the first fish, not after the first cut.
Gear for it. Have a look at Wavy Fishing Gloves, the rest of the accessories or redfish across the Gulf.
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