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Carp in distress?


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Its strange Den I just cant work it out.Its really at odds with the sometimes (IMO) OTT modern concern for fish welfare!?! Ive seen several anglers really rip hooks out then fuss and coo like a mother hen over the damage (that they have just caused!!!!) whilst applying Klinik and the likes!!!!!

 

There have been more advances with handling and fish welfare equipment etc etc in recent years than anything else so why this step backwards with such a basic skill? Or is it just another case of not being able to buy a skill in a nice Realtree package from the tackle shop?

 

I also wonder if there is a "Chicken or the Egg" thing going on? Do we have a more "care" products due to the lack of basic unhooking skills or is it because of all the care stuff anglers dont feel the need to be careful with unhooking?

 

Like I said I just cant get my head around it. Ive said "skill" when referring to unhooking several times but come on its not exactly rocket science is it? Surely more a case of common sense and a desire not to harm coupled with practice? (maybe that's the problem ie guys dont learn on hundreds of smaller fish first?)

 

Den mentions being shown how to unhook fish.Other than pike I cant really remember but surely I too must have been.This may be part of the problem as it often seems to me that many (sorry but Ive got to say it how I see it) of today's anglers "know it all" once they've brought all the gear and not only wouldnt be seen dead asking to be shown something but also wont/dont want to listen if advice/instruction is offered?

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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maybe that's the problem ie guys dont learn on hundreds of smaller fish first?

 

This is what I was referring to. I tend to get into arguments on here if I say things like that but I totally believe that going straight into 10lb carp without first learning these very basic, essential skills on lots of small, easy to handle fish (with light lines and tiny hooks that are very hard to damage fish with and require the right technique to remove) is the cause of virtually all this mouth damage.

 

Combine that with waters where the fish get caught very regularly because of high stocking, and it's no surprise really.

 

I agree about the hypocrisy of it all too, with 'safe rigs', huge mats, klinik etc. All very laudable and some great strides have been taken in recent years, but if (as we hear all the time) 'the safety of the fish is my main concern', you wouldn't fish somewhere where they have been disfigured by fishing.

 

Not exactly guardians of the waterways any more are we?

 

(Another rant - sorry :rolleyes: )

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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Its strange Den I just cant work it out.Its really at odds with the sometimes (IMO) OTT modern concern for fish welfare!?! Ive seen several anglers really rip hooks out then fuss and coo like a mother hen over the damage (that they have just caused!!!!) whilst applying Klinik and the likes!!!!!

 

There have been more advances with handling and fish welfare equipment etc etc in recent years than anything else so why this step backwards with such a basic skill? Or is it just another case of not being able to buy a skill in a nice Realtree package from the tackle shop?

 

I also wonder if there is a "Chicken or the Egg" thing going on? Do we have a more "care" products due to the lack of basic unhooking skills or is it because of all the care stuff anglers dont feel the need to be careful with unhooking?

 

Like I said I just cant get my head around it. Ive said "skill" when referring to unhooking several times but come on its not exactly rocket science is it? Surely more a case of common sense and a desire not to harm coupled with practice? (maybe that's the problem ie guys dont learn on hundreds of smaller fish first?)

 

Den mentions being shown how to unhook fish.Other than pike I cant really remember but surely I too must have been.This may be part of the problem as it often seems to me that many (sorry but Ive got to say it how I see it) of today's anglers "know it all" once they've brought all the gear and not only wouldnt be seen dead asking to be shown something but also wont/dont want to listen if advice/instruction is offered?

 

I agree with most of the points you raise budgie. It is a select few who will actively seek out guidance in order to get better at what they do. Most will just do the wrong thing simply to save face as they think it makes them less of a decent angler but it is the opposite which is true. In order to get better at something you simply swallow your pride and ask for assistance or guidance or simply watch someone else do it. I struggled with my wallis casting so I turned to Alan for help after his kind offer of a little training. Since I did that I have come on in leaps and bounds and am very competent at it. It only took an hour or so of mine and his time and I was away. The same would apply to unhooking. It is one of the fundamental 'skills' of anlging and yet so many do it wrong. It is like doing motorbike lessons and then jumping on your bike only to realise you didn't learn how to use the brakes. It does seem to be mainly the 'want it now' brigade who are a main culprit of lack of unhooking skills as they jump onto a lake or pond straightaway naling into large fish with large hooks and little experience when they have missed out some vital steps along the way, however it is also the anglers who have been at it for 20+ years and think they know it all and refuse to ask and change their ways based on what someone else thinks. Anglers can be very stubborn and do not like to be told that what they are doing is wrong. The people who are doing things wrong very likely know that they are and either dont care or are too embarrassed to ask.

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Personally, I reckon that's a very major part of it indeed. A human being can impart a hell of a lot of force onto the line, and without adequate shock absorption it strikes (no pun intended) me as entirely plausible that an over-enthusiastic angler with excessively butch kit could do a hell of a lot of damage to a fish simply by trying to set the hook and reel it in, possibly without even landing said fish. I'm pretty sure a little Mythbusters-style experimentation with rods of various test curves, lines of various breaking strengths, and a selection of fresh fruit would bear this out.

 

I couldn't agree more.

 

Having a hook type is one thing.... But imagine me hooking a Carp on 25lb line on a beach rod... And literally ragging the Carp to the bank.....

 

That method would cause much more damage to a fish than a barb or lack of one!

 

I have not too long ago got back into fishing, and therefore am still developing tactics/gear to suit my needs perfectly. The current feeder rod I use is very flexible, and I also use Mono due to the stretch/absorbing properties.

 

One thing I rarely do however is use a Landing net for little tiddlers....

 

I mean fish that are like 1-3 inches long, but a post on here has made me consider changing my tactics and using a net for ALL fish. The amount of times on a barbless hook they can thrash around and fall like 1 meter above the bank to the ground with a thud is shocking!

 

Most don't realise that these 40lb Carp.... Started off much smaller than the 2 inch fish they catch commonly! And that if an angler was careless when it was 2 inches in size.... It would never have made it to 40lb!

 

Show respect for todays tiddlers.... And make way for tommorows zoo creatures!

Species Caught 2011: Mirror Carp, Barbel, Ide, Rudd, Roach, Bleak, Perch, Bream,

 

Species Caught 2010: Perch, Pike, Roach, Rudd, Bleak, Bream, Gudgeon, Ruffe, Ide, Tench, Mirror Carp, Common Carp, Barbel, Chub, F1, Crusian Carp, Goldfish

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I couldn't agree more.

 

Having a hook type is one thing.... But imagine me hooking a Carp on 25lb line on a beach rod... And literally ragging the Carp to the bank.....

 

Try getting your scales out and tie them by the handle to a solid anchor. Attach the line of a made up rod to the hook and see how much you can actually pull using the rod in the conventional way ie one hand on the rod and the other on the reel.

 

You will find that it is extremely difficult to pull much more than 11lbs for very long what ever the rod you use! If you cant be bothered to do that then just think about the last time you had to "pull for a break! On anything that's balanced other than the finest of tackle you wont have been able to break the line by using the rod and will have to have reverted to a straight pull.

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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when ever i have spoke to anglers and have ask why they use such high breaking strain lines the answer is always the same "i tread 8lb line but kept getting snapped off" which as already been said takes some pressure to do assuming all the knots and line are good

 

the fish is not allowed to make a run and is fighting against constant resistance.

 

i have nowhere near as much experience as most of the other anglers on here but have never had trouble removing a hook as i was lucky enough to be taken fishing as a child and shown how to land and unhook a fish before ever being allowed to fish un supervised.

 

and most anglers are happy to offer guidance if for no other reason to keep the fish and waters in good condition for the future.

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You will find that it is extremely difficult to pull much more than 11lbs for very long what ever the rod you use!

It's not so much sustained effort that I think may be causing a problem, it's shock loading and contact patch. A stiff rod with a braid (or other not-very-stretchy) mainline is going to transmit an awful lot of force to a very small area of fish for a brief period. To use the 11lbs figure, that might not seem like a lot, but even assuming a seriously generous surface area for the hooks contact patch of 1/16th square inch, that's the equivalent of a couple of thousand PSI. Okay, a fair amount of that will be absorbed by the fish not being a fixed object (assuming the fish is, indeed, swimming freely at the time), but that's still a lot of pressure to apply to what might well be a hook held in no more than a millimeter or two of soft flesh.

 

Or, from the other way of looking at it, if a fish that was considered to be on the hook is lost before landing, the hook has somehow been removed from the fish by the application of one force or another to said hook. This force could be a force applied away from the point thereby removing the hook back out the way it came in, or a force in another direction sufficient to overcome the ability of whatever part of the fish it was lodged in to retain it.

 

For what it's worth, I'm certainly not disputing the damage that can potentially be done by mistakes made during unhooking and while the fish is being handled, merely suggesting that using gear designed to apply appropriate levels of force to 40lb leathery monsters could potentially result in hook pulls from smaller, softer mouthed quarry.

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Undoubtedly RV. My comments were to dispel the idea that massively different amounts of force could be applied with different tackle.

 

Within reason though I honestly dont think its the amount of force that's being applied to the fish that's the main reason though.If it was why didn't I see lots of mouth damage on the many carp Ive caught using "hit and hold" tactics close in? Its also been suggested (and it certainly sounds feasible) that today's modern trend of short hook link and heavy weight causes a lot of the damage we see...............but once again I use these tactics at times and dont see any damage? I also at times use very powerful equipment due to fishing at extreme range..............and dont have a problem? Ive been using braided mainlines for 20 years or so and dont have any damage? (I think some types of braid,both mainline and hook link,can damage fish but only if the hook is well inside the mouth and the line in contact with the flesh.This is mainly due to the braids profile ie the flat ones are the worse or people using excessively thin braids for hook link)

 

So why doesn't it happen to me? Yes as I keep saying there are right and wrong ways of doing every thing but the one common denominator is that all hooks need to be removed and as such this is surely where the damage must be occurring (providing all else is done correctly)?

 

I was truly shocked when I saw the amount of damaged tench that were coming out on one water I fish this season. When the owner,baillifs and other anglers discussed this with me (many wouldnt accept it until I showed them pictures) it was generally decided that the problem was because of fishing pressure on the particular swims in question. However the more I think about it regardless of the pressure or how many times the fish had been caught (and I doubt it was that many in most cases) the damage had still been done (the repeat capture just allowing this to be seen). And as such the question still remains why is some angler(s) damaging fish and others not? I obviously dont get to see how these fish were caught (but from discussion dont believe it was any different to how I catch mine) or unhooked but for me lack of care when unhooking still remains the No 1 suspect.

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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I don't know Budgie, it is just that I was taught how to do it when catching almost my first fish. I also really do think that for quite a few years now, men in particular, seem to lack any basic mechanical skills and understanding. Whizz kids on a computer, but give them a hammer and they wouldn't know which end to hit with (even if they understood what a hammer was :) )

 

Den

 

I think that what you say here and in your previous post re the mechanics of unhooking is very true.

Where accessible the use of ones fingers to unhook gives the greatest sensitivity of feel and in the majority of cases there should be no problems in easy removal of a hook. In the cases where one cannot effectively use their fingers and also with deep hooked fish then it is essential to have the right equipment and the knowledge of how to use it. Occassionally when you get a hook firmly embedded in the corner of the mouth and difficult to remove then it can be far more forgiving to push the hook through and cut the line. I personally feel based from what I have seen over the years that a good deal of mouth damage has been caused caused by trying to pull the hook back rather than pushing it through.

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