Landing, Handling, and Releasing Fish
Land and handle a fish safely for both you and the fish, and decide confidently when to release rather than keep it.
Why it matters
Careless handling can hurt you — spines, teeth, sharp gill plates — or kill a fish you meant to release. Correct identification before harvest also keeps you legal; keeping a fish you can't confidently identify risks an unlawful harvest even by accident.
Steps
- Use a net — a soft rubber mesh net is easiest on the fish — to land it rather than horsing it up by the line or rod alone.
- Wet your hands before touching any fish. Dry hands strip away a fish's protective slime coating, which normally guards against bacteria and parasites.
- If you need to lift or hold a fish, support it horizontally with two points of contact rather than a single vertical hold or a grip through the gills.
- Identify the species and check current legal size/possession rules before deciding to keep it. If you're not sure what it is, or it could be a protected or restricted lookalike species, release it.
- Use pliers or a dedicated hook-removal tool, not your fingers, especially near teeth or spines.
- If releasing: keep air exposure and photos quick, and let the fish swim off under its own power — hold it upright, facing into any current, if it needs a moment to recover before swimming away on its own.
- If keeping a legal fish: move straight into cooling it (see the next lesson) rather than letting it sit on a stringer or in a warm cooler.
Beginner tip: This site's own species pages note real handling cautions for the fish you're most likely to catch — check a species' page if you're not sure what to expect before you grab it.
- Unfamiliar, spiny, or toothy fish (catfish spines, bluefish teeth, any shark or ray) deserve extra caution — check that species' own handling notes on this site before grabbing it
- When identification or legality is uncertain, release the fish rather than risk an unlawful or unsafe harvest
- Keep young anglers directly supervised around hooks, fish teeth/spines, and the water's edge
Common mistakes
- Handling every fish the same way — a flounder, a bluefish, and a catfish each carry different real handling risks (teeth, spines, slime)
- Keeping a fish you can't confidently identify rather than releasing it
Hampton Roads application
This site's species pages for common Hampton Roads catches (bluefish's teeth, channel catfish's spines, flounder's two-eyes-on-one-side identification) give real, source-backed handling and identification detail specific to what you'll actually catch here.
Sources
- Virginia DWR — Grab a Big Net and Keep Your Hands Wet: Catch and Release Best Practices (opens in a new tab)
- Virginia DWR — Catch and Release Best Practices to Conserve Striped Bass (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed 2026-08-13
Spotted something wrong or out of date? See the Regulations & Safety page for official sources, or check this lesson's own sources above before relying on it.