I got a question for everyone.
So this week a buddy had a little incident in a run we were fishing, another gut was fishing the same run, hooked a coho and snapped off about 30+ feet of line above his float, fish vanished back to the depths with the float and gear in tow. Now my buddy proceeds to hook the same gear about 20 or so minutes later and has to hand line the rest in cause of how much was out there.
The question is... who's fish is it technically? Yes, the fish was a hatchery coho and bonked it, my buddy got a fish and the guy who lost his gear got his float, weight, hook and line back. It's something that has been buzzing a bit in my head but my view is that the guy who broke off is no longer able to claim that it's his fish cause he is no longer in control of it and isn't connected to the fish cause his line broke. But would it technically be the other anglers fish? he hooked it first and fought it before breaking off.
Just a little thing that happened, both parties had no issues with the choices made but it made for some interesting discussions and watching my buddy hand line a fish in is about the best high light other than another friend who cut my mainline trying to untangle his leader from my line.
And fishing has slowed down, feels like a restart to the season for some reason.