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open question to Bob Bradford


Guest NickInTheNorth

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I understand where you're coming from, and you may well be right. Having heard the arguments, if it wasn't practicable to eat it, I might well put it back with the hook in. (I certainly would do so if it was a small hook). My slight cautions are:

 

1) Although I accept that probably fish can't feel significant pain, I'm not 100% sure. My brother is a professional brain scientist, and this is his view - we're all influenced by informed people we know personally.

 

2) Isn't there some risk if you leave a fish swimming around with a large barbed hook in it's stomach, and it doesn't survive and is eaten by a pike, that it will kill the pike as well.

 

In practice the fish I've found to swallow the hook are normally small perch, trout and grayling - and they are all highly edible!

Its a good point John and one I asked earlier re the ability of a predator fish to cope with a swallowed hook. I would think that predator fish would be able to cope with a hook, in that they swallow bones spiky fins, gills etc in their daily routine of 'nailing' prey fish. Also from my searching of various internet sites it would appear that cutting the line is the next best option to hook removal. Perhaps then the biology of the predator allows a safe and successful removal of the hook. There now we are all totally exonerated (sp?)and can sleep well again :clap2:

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I say chaps, I have only been away for 2 evenings and this erstwhile compelling thread has come over all sensible, moderate and palsy-walsy!!! To the pro (or should it 'ant'?) tagonists many thanks for some cracking entertainment, can't beat blood and guts spilled all over the place. I see someone mentions 1865 views, I reckon 186 people have viewed the thread an average of 10 times each, as I said, compelling. Glad to see you survived John, you are welcome to come back to Norfolk to fish for those 2lb plus perch anytime! Bob, as I live in Norfolk and would love to fish the Yare, does your offer to fish with Jeepster extend to others on here, I would be delighted to have you show me the river ropes (Promise there is no ulterior motive or hidden agenda) I will send you a PM with my contact details but if you regret the offer simply ignore me. Keep it up everyone, but not too nice all of the time please!!!

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Ginger, I would be happy to show you a little of what I know fishing the Yare, whats your poison, the pole or the feeder? my offer is for the summer months however, as the fishing is very hit and miss on the match length this time of year.

I am a match angler .....not an anti-Christ!!!]

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Although I do have a cheapo 9metre pole I much prefer rod and line, normally, where practical, float but I do ledger and occasionaly use a feeder. I find it helpful to just sit next to someone and watch, surely the best way to lern but any useful info will be gratefully absorbed. I also do hit and miss right through the winter and lately I have actually blanked a time or two having fished right through from almost Xmas 2004 to a few months ago without failing to catch something. Went to Swaffham Club lakes yesterday and caught few roach to around 4ounces, half a dozen very small perch with one around a good pound along with a pike of around 4 lbs on ledgered worm, properly hooked too. (Would the pike have counted in a match?)

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Not if it was just a regular open match Ginger! although NFA model rules allow them in Nationals! The Yare can be fished with a waggler (on the right tide) or probably more likely a stick float, The pole or Feeder dominate in matches and after so many years of just fishing matches I find it hard not to think like a match angler! sorry!

 

Pm me and I will give you my E-mail, then after June 16th we can arrange a trip out on the river, warning ...be prepared to catch a lot of fish!

I am a match angler .....not an anti-Christ!!!]

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Glad to see you survived John, you are welcome to come back to Norfolk to fish for those 2lb plus perch anytime!

 

Thanks, Ginger. What's the latest in the lake I fished? Have you had anything different out in the last year, after the stocking? Are the rudd getting bigger?

john clarke

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Firstly let me say that I'm not aiming any criticism at anyone. To be honest, I've missed the exchanges between Bob and FT and I'm not really interested in them anyway.

 

What does concern me though is this notion that it can be right in some instances to affect a 'mercy killing' of a fish. I just don't see how. If a fish is too deeply hooked to allow the angler to remove the hook, then in my opinion there are two sensible options open to him/her. Either dispatch the fish and take it away for your's or a friend's consumption, or simply put it back into the water, regardless of it's physical state.

 

If the fish is beyond being able to recover, then it will simply become part of the underwater food chain. Not nice perhaps, but a fact of life.

 

To kill it on the grounds that you are offering it some form of humane euthanasia, flies completely in the face of what we uphold as our core belief as anglers, i.e that a fish does not have the capacity to suffer pain or trauma in the same way as a warm blooded animal. Why else would you think it 'kinder to kill a fish', than release it, if not because you think it will suffer when released?

 

Personally, unless the fish was deemed edible, I would always return it to the water.

 

The only problem with releasing a fish with a hook in it is you may cause the death of the next creature wich consumes it. Maybe it would be better to bump it off and save it for dead baiting or cut it open remove the hook and then throw it somewhere it's likley to be somethigs dinner.

 

 

I've just noticed John(flying Tench) has already said the same thing !

Tigger.

Edited by tigger
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Just two points.

 

First I am greatly pleased to see this thread reach 7 pages without being canned. It just goes to prove that we can have a contensious debate without it degenerating if we just step back a bit before jumping in.

 

On the subject of fish and swallowed hooks I have always erred on the side of puting fish back with a hook if I had to. The reason stems from the capture of a Rudd of about a pound when I was 16. The Rudd was a fantastic fit specimen fin perfect and beutifully couloured. The only blemish on the fish was that sticking from its anus was a size ten long shank hook (Pegley Davis I think). Attached to this hook was about 5 inches of line.

There were only two ways that hook could have got there. A bored angler could have inserted it through its anus, a fidly and time consuming operation. The other alternative is that the fish swallowed the hook and passed it through its gut with no ill effect, god knows how that could happen but it is the only possible answer.

It is instances like this and the capture of perfectly happy fish with gapping holes in there side that convince me that fish do not feel pain in the human sense.

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Thanks, Bob, will PM you if my computer stays with me long enough! John, I haven't fished the res very much at all but will probably have a serious go when the weather gets a bit warmer. I reckon some of those introduced bream should be around the pound mark by now with carp approaching 10 ish. The perch remain an enigma, I have seen them but they remain elusive and perhaps a spinner might be worth a go to winkle them out. I find it odd that with some good sized perch I would expect to see smaller ones, along with rudd they seem to breed easily and are just about the easiest to catch when all other species are not interested.

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