Livebaiting for pike

[Guest Richard Capper]

Wow this is a curly one!

 

There have been some very good posts on this one! I fear that this could be a real problem for anglers. Livebaiting is very difficult to defend. Its goes against well fair first etc. Arguements like its the circle of life ... and its not as bad as X,Y or Z ... just won't wash.

 

I just don't think it can be defended. Thus I fear it may cause a divide in the sport with no livebaiters eg matchmen or the carpboys trying to distance themselves from the preditor anglers.

 

No I don't think it should be banned but YES I think its only a matter of time.

[Guest Leon Roskilly]

Originally posted by TheDacer:

And for those that say it's impossible to be cruel to fish - would you rather gaff a pike or net it, put it on a padded mat and carefully unhook it?

 

I use a special soft mesh landing net, carefully lay the pike/mullet etc on an unhooking mat, treat any wounds or sores with Klin-ik and return the fish as soon as possible.

 

Not because it's 'kind' to do so, but because it's good for the *welfare* of the fish I'm returning.

 

Same reason that I water a plant with drooping leaves, replace rocks the right way up when I'm bait collecting, release unused lob worms back under a pile of damp soil in the garden.

 

I don't believe that plants, worms, crustacea or fish can experience pain, pyschological torment, anxiety, or anything which we would equate with what we humans would regard as 'suffering'.

 

If an organism cannot be said to 'suffer' then it is a nonsense to talk about be cruel to it.

 

If you believe that it can 'suffer', then you have absolutely no right to offer it food, stick a hook into it and drag it out of the water solely for your own entertainment, no matter how much you assuage your conscience by using an unhooking mat etc.

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Guest tony jolley]

Richard capper said that the issue of live baiting may divide carp and match anglers from the predator anglers.

I dont think it is fair on a fish to make it drag around a 3-4 oz lead,

lets ban them as well. I will defend the right to use ALL and ANY LEGAL method of catching fish. If you want to examine the issue of livebaiting then you will have to look at all the aspects of angling, Then the antis will have won.

at the very begining of this thread i posted that there is a statement from ALL the predator groups within the S A C G page, Will some one PLEASE post it here now, as some of the people posting and reading this obviously have not read it.

Before you hammer me for the "lead statement" dont forget I said that I would defend the right to use them. which is more then some people would do to defend our aspects of our sport.

Richard capper i have only used your statment to high light my view of the selfish attitude of some anglers. I have NO problem with what you have said and sadly I feel you are probably right!!

 

 

FIGHT FOR THE YOUR RIGHT TO FISH THE WAY YOU WANT. DONT BUCKLE AND BEND BECAUSE ITS EASIER TO DO!!!!.

 

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Tony B.T Jolley

[Guest Bruno Broughton]

So that I, for one, can believe that you are writing from an informed position, rather than one of mere opinion or prejudice, I would like to ask that:-

 

1. anyone who posts here stating that angling is cruel produces the scientific evidence.

 

2. anyone who believes that livebaiting (rather than fish transfers) has caused the spread of non-native species comes up with the proof.

 

3. anyone who is sure that livebaiting has spread fish diseases divulges the factual basis for this.

 

If you don't want to post the information here, I would be most grateful if you would email it to me privately.

 

 

 

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Bruno

[Guest Leon Roskilly]

Whilst live-baiting is legal, pike anglers are free to catch bait on the water they are fishing, and fishery owners are free to offer disease free live-baits for sale.

 

Banning live-baiting, making it illegal to openly catch fish on the water on which they are to be used, making it illegal to sell disease free fish for use as live-baits is, in my opinion, a recipe for ensuring that fish will be sneaked into other waters.

 

Especially those remote locations where the risk of being caught is negligible, but where the possible introduction of diseased or alien species is likely to be disasterous.

 

I listened to a science radio programme a little while ago. One of the items concerned a group of evolutionary theorists who bemoaned the fact that they no longer have access to the the virgin, isolated islands which Darwin had observed.

 

Then they had the bright idea that many lakes are 'negative' islands.

 

What really surprised them was that, when their investigations got under way, there was evidence of 'recent' gene swapping amongst the fish populations between isolated 'islands' of water. (They had taken great care to ensure that there were no natural factors such as common flood plains or fish introductions by humans to cause this).

 

It seems that nature has some way of ensuring distribution of fish species to environments where they are suited.

 

Live-baiting has been practised for many hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, without any major ecological disasters taking place.

 

Plenty of alien species are in plenty of waters where they don't belong. The waters that I fished as a kid didn't have loads of carp, rainbow trout etc as they do now.

 

If we are that concerned about spreading 'alien' species, perhaps we should start by banning fly-fishing, carp-fishing, fishing for catfish and zander etc.

 

There is a tremendous amount of evidence that these (and some other) branches of the sport have been responsible for intoducing alien and diseased fish.

 

There is no real evidence that live-baiting has ever been responsible for any such introductions, only accusations.

 

One thing that I'm sure of is that banning the collection of live-bait from the water where they are to be used, banning the sale of disease free fish, will only serve to increase the number of such fish translocated.

 

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Guest 'eelfisher']

Dear all

Well, no real reasons then 'The Dacer'.

I shall stand behind Bruno and Leon on this, quite obviously some amongst us have no stomach for the 'possible' fight to come....and I say 'possible' fight...Thank goodness that these chappies are not in the seats that will be taken if the debates start.

If they were, we would all be taking up the discount vouchers that they would be passing out to become involved in other pastimes and activities.

Thanks for a thread that so far only shows anglers divided within their beloved sport.

I stand with the people who will fight tooth and nail to protect ALL the legal and legitimate angling practices of the 'brothers of the angle.'

Yours With Respect....

Steve.

[Guest Steady On]

Dacer asks for a good reason to retain livebaiting, I say we retain it for all the reasons we retain our right to go fishing. If livebaiting is cruel then all fishing (including commercial fishing) is cruel. If there is no reason for livebaiting there is no reason for angling.

 

Angling is angling, it is a largely pointless pastime for most of us that provides close contact with nature, a certain intellectual challenge, pleasure in our irrelevant achievements and a break from the necessary important things that we all have to deal with like earning a living or raising a fmily. It does very little harm - some litter and lost tackle - compared to the vast benefit it provides in conservation and economic terms.

 

Angling will only be lost if we pick and choose the bits we will defend, invariably they are the bits that we enjoy ourselves. I will fight for carp angling, put & take trout fishing, match angling, livebaiting, or any other part of the sport that I don't participate in myself, because I would like to enjoy the right to do so, I do not want non-participants to take that right away from me, even if they hide behind the name "angler".

[Guest TheDacer]

Ho-hum.. I see the voice of calm reason does not reside in the pro-livebaiting camp then.

 

A shame, because some - like Leon, for example - seem able to manage to stick to the very real issue of whether or not livebaiting is a justifiable method and even to put forward a philosophy to support their view.

 

Turning to that view, I have to agree with what you say, Leon, that IF it is impossible to be cruel to a fish then there can be no reasonable objection to livebaiting.

 

I think that that is where we differ, however, because I make the assumption that it is possible to be cruel to a fish. (And to any other living thing and even, in the strict sense of the word, to non-living things).

 

In a bizarre way I guess that makes me more "guilty" than livebaiters because even though I think it is possible to be cruel - I still fish.

 

However, that is why I limit what I see as being the cruelty by using klinik, using a mat (if the fish actually needs to come out of the water), the occassional catch and kill (for the pot) and so on...

 

I guess that's also why, in my mind, livebaiting is cruel. And in your mind it is not. We have different philosophies. We view the world in different ways. Both ways have uneasy consequences attached. Both ways also have positive attributes.

 

We're lucky in that angling is permitted in both philosophies. We're unlucky in that - over the issue of livebaiting, for example - our philosophies clash.

[Guest Leon Roskilly]

Originally posted by TheDacer:

We're unlucky in that - over the issue of livebaiting, for example - our philosophies clash.

 

Oh dear! That means that I will have to kill you

 

 

 

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Guest Steady On]

When Dacer admits that he feels he can be cruel to an inanimate object I feel that it does put the rest of his postings into context.

 

He's barking!