Consider your net as a necessary adjunct or tool to use in preference to your hands, as a device or implement to assist you in safely landing your trout and then in handling him with the mesh between your hand and the fish whether it is your intent to release him or kill him.

If beaching the trout, care must be exercised and you should move slowly. If at all possible to get him to shore without grabbing hold of the leader do so. That gives him something stable to suddenly pull against and, if not too solidly hooked, he may tear loose. Use the bend of the rod, by all means, if the rod is of a quality or strength to take it, to draw the fish to the shallows where you may have the opportunity to grasp him behind the head or with your fingers in gill covering to pull him to safety. I’ve seen fishermen actually boot them to dry land and it isn’t such a bad idea if it’s a heavy fish.

For the sake of the tackle, let us mention here, in landing your fish, even baby fish of six to eight inches, never intentionally lift them bodily from the water with your rod. Free of the water cushion their weight is intensified greatly and many times it’s just enough to permit a lightly hooked trout to drop off.

You’ve heard anglers complain, “Boy, oh boy! I lost a gorgeous brown today. Had him on for ten minutes and he got away. My luck’s gone sour, I guess.” Do you think the fisherman blames his luck, the conditions under which he fought the fish or the quality of his tackle? In ninety-nine cases out of one hundred it’s one of the three. The one hundredth fisherman is brutally honest and blames himself. Were he not lacking in ability and skill, or his lack of alertness, the conditions under which he fought the fish would be of no particular concern. If the trout was poorly hooked, only one person in the world can be at fault. Poor hooking is faulty timing and is no accident unless the fish hooks himself, and our angler can take no particular credit for even catching him. Does he blame the leader strength? Who chose the size he was using—who checked it for faulty knots and possible weaknesses? Was the fly too small for secure hooking? Who selected it and put it on? One can run through all the excuses and the cause gallops directly back to our angler. He claimed, too, that he “lost” the fish. One cannot lose something he hasn’t got! The man just had a struggle with a fish (probably one-tenth of the fisherman’s weight, or much less) and because the fisherman, himself, “missed” on something the fish gave him a licking. It’s tough but the good sport swallows the bitter pill and gives the fish credit.

When once you have your trout in hand, or on shore, and it’s your intent to creel him, kill the fish at once by rapping his head sharply with a hard object (I use my fisherman’s knife as a “tunker” when I’m keeping a fish). Anglers used to carry, as part of their stream equipment, a small replica of a leaded shillelagh, called an “Itchomaniac’s Black jack” or “Priest” or “Fish Billy.” If you don’t choose to put him out of his misery with that coup de grace, break his neck by forcing his head backward with thumb in his mouth until the backbone noticeably cracks. If the fish is large, a cut just at the head severing the backbone will do the trick.
Fish will keep fairly well in your shaded creel if kept reasonably dry without cleaning but for the most adequate preservation, until you can put them on ice or in a cooler, clean your fish as soon as killed—do this DRY preferably. This leaves the protective slime coating over all parts and has a tendency to add hours to the keeping quality. Cleaning the fish in water washes away the coating, permitting active bacteria to start their spoiling action at once. After cleaning the fish thoroughly and certainly removing the gills and the kidney, which is the black bloody section along the spine, wipe the fish as dry as you can before creeling. I mentioned several chapters back that I was a “junk carrier” and part of that junk is a pad of absorbent paper toweling and a few sheets of wax paper. The purpose of this material is, I believe, self-evident. If the trout is wrapped dry, securely in wax paper, you can use dampened moss or grass in your creel and this makes quite a suitable stream refrigerator.

Never let the fish become even moist if you can avoid it even in ice-box refrigeration. Keep him dry, in wax paper. These admonitions apply, of course, to those fish that must be safely preserved and “freezing” is not an available service.
In transporting the fish that you’re keeping, from camp to destination, iced certainly is the surest safe method. If icing isn’t convenient or possible, do this: When ready to pack the fish, and this should be the final act in preparing to head homeward, remove them from whatever receptacle or place you had them to keep cool and wrap your wax papered fish singly in a sheet or two of newspaper or more wax paper or aluminum foil. Then in one or two groups, or in single batch, wrap the bundle in more newspaper and then some more. Wrap this whole bundle then in a heavy blanket or your sleeping bag and store in the car away from direct sun’s rays. This system has safely kept trout cool and fresh, in many instances, for from eight to ten hours, and much of that time driving through the Mojave desert in July at midday.