Pond Fish - Do You Like Catching Them?

[Andy Macfarlane]

Right or wrong the spreading of Brown Trout around the world was an amazing feat! Just try keeping trout livebaits without a good oxygen pump!

 

As I suggested earlier. Nigh on bloody impossible without creating a large chunk of scum, which I suspect traps waste gases or toxins in the water. That's a mere guess at best but it's an observation, the mechanics of which I don't understand.

 

As for the Pike "anti coagulant" thing I think in all fairness the term "saliva" has been taken a bit to literally here so making the whole thing look a lot more implausible than it is! Like I said it is actually taught on some fishery management/freshwater biology courses.

 

Quite possible yes. The saliva thing does make it all sound quite corny.

 

The same goes for the transferring of fish eggs by birds.

 

But as with a lot of things like this its very hard to find good factual evidence of any worthwhile scientific research,It seems to me that far to much credence is given to what appears in books/Internet by "unqualified" authors........as is it now seems far to easy for equally "unqualified" people to cast doubt on such things!

 

That doesn't mean we can't discuss it. We're not all idiots in here. There would appear to be enough learned members on AN for a reasonable conclusion to take place.

 

For example (and it is only example) How do we know that Peter Maitland and Niall Campbell had any proof of their claims and weren't merely repeating folk lore /local gossip? Who (or more accurately what!) is Corydoras to say that the anti coagulant thing is bollix?

 

No more than any of the rest of us but he's still quite clever and surely that gives his input some credence. He is after all, only disputing the idea because it seems completely unreal to those who actually have experience of the problem.

 

See what I mean? You would have thought that the lecturers I had on my degree or fishery management courses would be a pretty reliable source of "fact" but like Ive often said they tended to contradict each other and as an experienced "observer" of fish and their environment "knew" somethings they taught me were "wrong" (once again their knowledge simply being passed on from another source that was often flawed but never questioned).

 

Well, that's what I was saying.

 

Trouble is research costs both time and money. This to often means that unless there is some financial gain to be achieved that such research is simply never carried out.

 

But surely if the effect of an anti-coagulants in pike were so well known, someone, somewhere would have tested the subject thoroughly, to see if there was a possible medical application, even if it was just to dismiss the idea? Instead, we know more about anti-coagulants in venomous snakes. You'd imagine one was cheaper to test than the other.

 

I also struggle to believe that fish only get into waters as a result of man.Surely they wouldn't have established them selves so universally if this was the case? Andy's (cant remember the proper word! transient?) dry/wet ponds sticklebacks is a prime example.

 

They appear spontaniously from rotting weed. Well, that's probably what Gesner would have thought.

 

During my early years of infatuation with Catfish I was rather frustrated by the lack (or apparent lack) of scientific information about them,their life cycle etc. Myself and Rob contacted the Natural History Museum (after getting fed up with listening to all the "facts" told to us by so called fishing "experts" that just a few seasons of fishing for them in this country and shown us were obviously rubbish) We paid for a "Study session", this involved submitting a request for the information we wanted and the reasons why plus a rather large (well large for two scummy danglers as us!) three figure fee/donation [cough,cough] .It turned out to be the best money I have ever forked out on anything to do with fishing! However to the point it showed me two things relevant to this thread-

 

One an awful lot of proper research has been carried out but just finding it (even if it is on the Internet/in libraries) is a task in itself as is once found understanding it!

 

That's true I suppose but surely just one iota would suffice?

 

Secondly is that many "facts" are simply not deemed worthy of the expense/time to ratify them but these are also often ones where practical experience has shown them to be true facts but the exact "mechanics" never really understood.

 

An anti-coagulant though?? Surely that would be worthy of expense and time to ratify it's existence and potential for use?

 

I suppose a bit like my thing about bream not wanting to feed on big moon nights,Ive no idea why but Ive seen it first hand so many many times I simply accept it.

 

I don't see that as similar at all. One could potentially save lives all over the world. The other is merely an observation that would aid bream anglers and nobody else. One is very useful, the other is purely selfish. In the best possible use of the term mind.

 

Fascinating answer though. If it wasn't I would have chosen to answer it.

[chesters1]

does he learn from someone who also never checked what he was alluding to

Theres an endless lot of so called scientific "fact" that has little or no research done on it but is stated as hard fact.

Try using your phone in a hospital ,what would have happened a year or so ago if you did then

research is extremely expensive so most results are never checked by others unless its seems to be shady and even then as most is copyrighted you wont know how it was obtained and thenm you also have to raise the money to run research to question it ,most will never be challenged

are we living longer?

what is it based on .Victorians who had a 40% death rate ,the first world war ,When? are we living longer or just not dying younger there is a vast difference

it was fact the celocampth was extinct

Edited March 6, 2011 by chesters1

[Andy Macfarlane]

Mr. Brown's pacemaker would have downloaded the Crazy Frog ringtone I suspect.

 

[Andy Macfarlane]

are we living longer or just not dying younger there is a vast difference

 

That's the same thing but I understand the sentiment. I think you mean dying prematurely.

[chesters1]

no prematurely means there is a fixed age you die at

it was 3 score years and ten in the bronze age according to a best seller of the time

people were shorter ,were they?

Edited March 6, 2011 by chesters1

[corydoras]

Who (or more accurately what!) is Corydoras to say that the anti coagulant thing is bollix?

 

Lack of evidence. I can't find ONE learned paper discussing any type of anti-coagulents in Esox lucius.

 

Critical Thinking. It doesn't mesh with what I know about pike feeding behavior. Pike do not attack their prey then wait for them to bleed to death before having a meal. It makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view.

 

The only references I can find to ANY species of fish having anti-coagulant glands are some lamprey. This makes sense because it meshes with what I know about the lifestyle of lamprey and it makes sense from an evolutionary perceptive.

[Andy Macfarlane]

Well whatever you mean Chesters, living longer and not dying younger are exactly the same thing, however you wish to dress it up.

 

I still grasped what you were driving at. I just thought the way you put it was...well...rubbish.

[chesters1]

nothing new there then

[corydoras]

It's just as well we don't have Killi Fish in the UK. Many Killi fish are annuals. They hatch, reach sexual maturity and die in the same year. Their eggs can exist in an almost spore like state in a dried up lake or river beds for many months and then hatch as soon as the rains come. Killi fish fanciers send each other eggs through the post. My dad used to keep Killis. He found an envelope with Killi eggs in it at the back of a drawer. He had forgotten about them and they must have been there for a year or two. When he put them in a tank most of the eggs were still viable and loads of them hatched out. One would not have thought that you could get life from what appeared to be a pinch of snuff in the bottom of a test tube.

[lutra]

Do you think that after the ice retreated the land mass that makes up current day England, Scotland and Wales was an island?

Yes.

 

The land bridge was lost during the ice retreat, wasn't it? A build up of melt water (a large growing fresh water lake that help some freshwater fish find their way to some of our east coast rivers before it went down the plughole) that eventually broke out south cutting us off from Europe by forming the English Channel, i believe.