Wrecking Dilemma!!!

[drifter]

In the interests of conservation (once my freezers topped up) I only keep a couple of fish per crew member and throw the rest back. However, when fishing the wrecks it is very likely that several Ling will be landed with little chance that they will survive upon being returned to the water because their swim bladders are blown. On the other hand, Cod seem able to survive the ordeal and immediately return with no apparent discomfort.
I was told that piercing the protruding swim bladder with a bait needle or hook point will allow the fish to swim back to the bottom and I have noticed that this appears to work.
My dilemma is this, does the pierced swim bladder mend and allow the fish to survive, should I simply keep the large Ling and do the piercing thing with the littluns/straps or just leave the wrecks alone.

[canman]

I've heard and seen the same thing, saw Rex hunt doing the piercing of the swim bladder, him saying it does them no harm.

[oldessox]

Apparently , that ballon that is poking out of their mouth isn't the swim bladder , it's the lining of their stomach , the swim bladder expands and pushes the stomach forward to the fishes mouth , you poke a hole through both the swim bladder and the stomack wall , the fish goes back but doesn't survive
The recommended way is by syringe through the fishes side into the swim bladder itself and release the air into the syringe , but it needs surgical accuracy to do it properly.
The best method from my logical thinking , is the release weight , a heavy weight set up on a seperate rod with an upturned barbless large hook , the weight takes the fish back to the bottom where the swim bladder compresses again and a tug on the line releases it from the barbless hook , how you discover if the fish survives or not I don't know
Personally , I have stopped using bait on wrecks , I catch hardly any ling that way and the odd one I do catch either goes back or it dosn't , but I don't mind taking the odd one home.
When the season is drawing to a close , I'll try a few big baits for the big ling , but until I actually want to catch a ling ........... no baited hooks .

Ray

[drifter]

I reckon the no-bait option is probably the way forward if I want to fish the wrecks and on reflection I have seldom caught Ling on a shad or pirk. Yep, that seems like a plan because there's nothing so upsetting as seeing a returned Ling floundering on the surface with the gulls hovering in anticipation.