The spinner arced across the stream, landing a foot from the bank. I flipped the rod tip up to start the blade, lowered the rod and began the retrieve, quartering the lure downstream, barely fast enough to keep the blade turning.

I was fishing a deep run and the far side of the stream had a small eddy or current break created by a thick overhanging, half-submerged willow. Trout love holding areas such as this.

The slow retrieve allowed the fluttering spinner to sink quickly and it hadn’t traveled 4 feet before I felt a solid thump as an unseen trout hit, mistaking it for an injured minnow being swept helplessly downstream.

I was keyed up, expecting a hit here in such perfect conditions and instantly set the hook. The fish never moved and my UL bent against the unyielding resistance.

My pulse rate instantly soared when I failed to move the fish; it definitely was larger, but how big? The next few seconds would tell and I gently increased the pressure, attempting to goad the trout into revealing its size.

For a long minute, this fish stayed put, never budging an inch; then turned, dashing downstream, the drag singing, the rod bucking in my hand, the excitement meter rocketing skyward. From the strain in my hands and wrist this was a worthy fish indeed, something heavy and strong. The battle was on, the ultimate outcome still hanging in the balance, the eventual winner — fish or fishermen — still to be determined.

After five minutes my wrist, to my surprise, began tiring from the constant strain as the trout used the swift current to its advantage, angling head and side away from me, getting every ounce of energy from the force of the swift current, gaining every advantage possible from the rushing water.

Angle your palm into a fast current sometime and you’ll instantly discover the force the flow can exert. It’s considerable and your 4-pound test, ultralight rod, skill and grip will be put to the test on a large, stubborn fish.

As I worked the trout very slowly, it finally came to the surface; a wide, high and heavy brown trout around 18 inches. A little surprised she wasn’t bigger, I marveled at her stubborn tenacity straining my wrist. Finally, five minutes later, she was at my boots, but still spunky enough to trash and dart away several times from the waiting meshes.

The spinner was deep in her mouth, just at the beginning of the gills and I’m thrilled my altered spinner only has a single hook, not a treble. A deeply buried treble here could be fatal — and this fish deserved to be released.

Carefully grasping the hook with my forceps, I pushed directly back, parallel to the shank and the hook slid out. The barb was crushed previously, making this removal easy and safe.

The tired trout glared at me as it recovered and then dashed back out into the current to fight again.

Over the years the ever-increasing trend has been for more and more anglers to release their fish. It’s a great thing to do; many fishermen don’t care to cook their catch, anyway, fishing for the challenge that trout present. Because of this, I thought I might present a few thoughts on releasing trout properly.

If you’re keeping fish, treble hooks are fine, but if you plan on releasing them, trebles can be devilishly hard to remove. Occasionally, all three hooks on a spinner are buried and I’ve caught many trout with the side of the mouth seriously injured by hook removal. Many anglers with less delicacy and patience than needed grow impatient and wrench stubbornly buried hooks out, tearing delicate tissue.

Not good.

To reduce a treble to a single, one can simply clip off two of the three and bend the barb down on the remaining hook. Or, snip off the entire hook and replace it with a tiny split ring and single hook. Wrap a little red, yellow or orange yarn around the shank and hold it fast with a few twists of thread and some super glue. Use needle-nose pliers to crush that barb down and you’ll have no difficulty removing even deeply buried hooks.

You‘ll also be pleasantly surprised with how well single hooks work; they’re not a disadvantage.

If using bait, just bend the barb down and always keep a tight line, you won’t lose many fish at all.

To prevent trout from taking your bait deeply, strike the instant you feel a hit. There are times when you may have to let them nibble a bit longer in order to hook up, but generally speaking with worms, salmon eggs, mealworms, etc. an immediate strike will hook the trout.

While removing the hook, examine carefully its position in the mouth. Using forceps push directly back and parallel to the shank to remove it. Don’t twist unless absolutely necessary, as this motion will tear tissue.

If a hook is swallowed deeply, near the gills or embedded in stringy gristle, simply snip the line very close to inside the mouth and release. Hooks are cheap, trout are precious.

I hope this helps those releasing their trout with the least amount of injury. Good fishing.