So You Snagged a Seagull. What Now?

If you fish for long enough, it’s inevitable – sooner or later, you’ll snag a seagull. What now?

Once you reel a squawking, flapping, kicking gull into the boat, the most important thing is to grab a rag or towel and immediately place it over the gull’s head. As long as the bird can see it’ll try to peck you (yes it does hurt and yes, they can draw blood) and flap its wings wildly, but the moment you eliminate its ability to see, the gull will chillax. Then, you can set about untangling it.

Ninety nine times out of 100 it will be tangled around a wing, not hooked. Hooks tend to slide right over the feathers and rarely break the gull’s skin. Wing tangles, however, can be really bad at times. If the gull is being traumatized and you can’t get the line free, you may want to cut it close to the bird on the rod-side and pull it out from the other end. Usually with mono it will slide right through, though ropey braid can be tougher. You’ll find that in any case the line is commonly wrapped, not knotted, and once loosened can usually be pulled free rather easily.

Once the bird’s out of the line, you can use the towel to handle it and hold it up above deck level. Keep a grip on a corner of the towel while throwing the bird up, and it will almost always fly away without a problem.

And NO, seagulls do NOT taste like chicken!

(Editor’s note: just for the record, that was a joke – sea gulls are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and it’s against federal law to kill or intentionally harm them).