Eating Perch...or any other prized species.

[corydoras]

Now you're just being daft. The point of my analogy, if you really didn't know, is that we don't need to justify our sport by killing the fish we catch. Angling is a sport, as is shooting. We have the right to enjoy our sport for what it is, the same as those who shoot clays and targets.

You're missing the point. No you don't kill the fish you catch. You use the same rod and tackle as if you were going to kill them, but you're a good boy, once you have had a look, took a snap, weighed it or whatever else it is you do you gently release your quarry back to its limpid stream.

 

What you don't seem to understand is that there are a few, my young son for one who thinks this is as acceptable as going into the rain forest to catch a wild animal 'just to have a look', whereas he has no issue with catching mackerel for the barbie, or even catching and killing a cute little monkey if it was to feed a family.

[gozzer]

Crickey, I've been away from the PC for a few hours, come back ,and reread the posts on this thread.

I advise everyone to do the same. Then think about what's been said. A large number of the posts are just attempts to justify a particular form of angling, by picking fault with another. Having been involved with angling for 40 odd years, and experienced most forms of freshwater angling, I could write a very long list, pointing out the faults and downside to any branch of it, as could most anglers who have been fishing a long time.

 

Not one poster has put the case for live baiting being different to taking a fish to eat. All I've seen is "we don't use mature fish", "the fish we use are of no sporting value", "the fish are returned unharmed if we don't get a run on them", "they are lightly lip hooked, and gently swung out".

 

If you use 5 or 6 baits a session then they never will be mature fish.

 

To some people bream have no sporting value, so it's ok for them to lightly lip hook a 3lber and gently swing it into the swim.

 

So a 3in roach with a size 6 or 4 lightly? stuck in it's lip, swimming around for a few hours does no damage to it then?

 

I don't even know how a lightly lip hooked fish can be swung 20 or 30 yards if that's where the holding area is.

 

I even read of conspiracy theories and unwritten laws, the arguments are starting to get a bit low in substance

[corydoras]

It feels as if I'm discussing the ethics of eating pork with an orthodox Jew!

ROFLOL. I nearly spilt my beer then

[Sharkbyte]

People who are horrified at the very idea of killing and eating a perch yet who are willing to kill fish for bait or to kill and eat sea fish (or indeed to buy sea fish at the supermarket or the chippy) simply have not thought their position through thoroughly.

 

On that basis the Irish Pikers who campaign endlessly about the vast slaughtering of their quarry for food haven't thought their position through thoroughly because they may use a livebait or two.

 

Imagine, I'm on the riverbank and land a reasonable pike infront of some bypassers. I have two options beat it over the head with the bankstick and tell them it's for my dinner or carefully unhook it and send it on it's way none the worse for wear, explaining how I release all my catch. You seriously reckon that the latter is more damaging in the long term to angling. One of these options can be carried out on full view with nothing to fear, the other has to be done secretly when nobody is looking.

 

Out of the countless fish I have hooked, landed and returned infront of dog walkers, ramblers or couples on their Sunday strole, I have yet to have one of them tell me how cruel I am. By demonstrating careful handling, unhooking and respect for my quarry it has however brought me many a compliment. Anglers have nothing to fear from the general public. A few cranks will not bring this sport down.

[GlennB]

You obviously do not understand my sentiments Glenn and I would appreciate if you did not patronise me My 'stance' is not for a livebait ban, I do not live bait, but that is my choice. My stance is that we as anglers do not eat our quarry, that is it, the bottom line , the unwritten law.

BTW Glenda its Rabbit

Sorry if you feel patronised, as that was not my intention and, in fact, I can't see anything patronising in my post (I've been calling you Wabbit for many posts now - can see any reason to stop now, Doc).

But you haven't answered the point. If it's OK to kill a fish for bait to catch another, how can it be wrong to eat a similar fish instead? (and Steve Walker has explained, excellently, why it's not a worry to eat some of the larger fish, if indeed you can call a 1lb perch 'large')

And the "what if everybody did it?" argument is spurious. "What if" millions of people cashed in their positive equity and bought a few acres, lived in a yurt and grew corn and carrots to live off? It would mean the end of civilisation as we know it. But it ain't going to happen. Similarly coarse fish stocks aren't going to be decimated for the pot, *but* we all have the right to eat that fish - within the regulations - *or*, for that matter, go and live in a yurt on our smallholding.

[GlennB]

Out of the countless fish I have hooked, landed and returned infront of dog walkers, ramblers or couples on their Sunday strole, I have yet to have one of them tell me how cruel I am. ....

 

About a week ago, on the K+A canal, I had a couple of little roach swimming in a bucket ready to be stuck on trebles in pursuit of pike or perch. A kiddie looked in and asked why they were in there. An hour earlier I'd unhooked a *big* roach and a mum+kid watched and smiled at the fishie swimming away. Please explain the right way here.

[Nightwing]

It ever ceases to amaze me that as soon as someone expresses an opinion different to the morality police they are doing it simply for the sake of being controversial.

 

For centuries civilised man has been catching and eating fish (and all sorts of other wild creatures) and now we are all expected to abandon that and eat either farmed fish - totally disgusting, or intensively reared meat - also disgusting.

 

Please read what is written.

 

If a fishery can withstand some killing of fish for the table what is wrong with doing so?

 

Is your argument that it is morally wrong? If so then I suggest that you must stop fishing because I am afraid that catching a wild creature purely for amusement is far more morally repugnent to the majority of the population.

 

If your argument is that there is nowhere in the UK capable of sustaining a population of fish and being sensibly harvested then you are just plain wrong.

 

Please do not make sweeping generalsations. You may not fish anywhere that will allow controlled harvesting of the fish population - I do. You may prefer to eat intensively reared animal protein rather than naturally reared animal protein - I do not. When possible I prefer to catch and kill, or rear and kill my own meat. In this over regulated world in which we live there are less and less opportunities to do so. One is no longer allowed to kill ones own "domestic" animals (sheep, pigs, cattle), they must be sent to a licensed abbatoir and subjected to the stress that entails. So I can shoot wild game - only possession of a sensible rifle is less and less easy. Or I can catch and kill fish easily with legal equipment. So that is what I do.

 

Just to be clear I catch and kill "coarse fish", "game fish" and "sea fish". I will kill any fish I want to eat from anywhere it is legal to do so and where the action of taking such a fish will not be detrimental to the long term viabilty of the species in that location.

 

Excellent post.

You would fit in well over the pond here as well, Nick.

It's not about "raping the land"..it's about sustainable resources being used in a way that goes back to the begining of life on Earth...and the fact that there is NOTHING wrong with doing that.

[Nightwing]

My stance is that we as anglers do not eat our quarry, that is it, the bottom line , the unwritten law.

BTW Glenda its Rabbit

 

I have never in my life heard of that "law"..and I've fished for a good part of it.

Indeed....among the earliest "laws" I learned, was that when preparing a fresh shore lunch, the best tasting fish are those just killed moments before. Usually for me, it's a couple of trout, perch or walleye, wrapped in a few strips of bacon, stuffed with (hopefully), a couple of wild moral mushrooms and chopped wild leeks.

I'm glad I live in a univers where such delicacys are still allowed...instead of the bleak, joyless and ever retreating world you seem to live in.

I rejoice in the taste of fresh, wild caught fish, or for that matter, vennison I've harvested myself, Rabbit I've shot, or yes, even squirrel, roasted with apple slices and onion.

If it ever got to the sad point where eating some of what you caught was consider immoral...I'd quit fishing, as at that moment...we will have lost, utterly, and totally, to the forces of the anti's.

Edited April 12, 2006 by Nightwing

[Nightwing]

I also think that those who feel the need to retain the right to do so are missing the essence of the sport, or at least what I consider the essence of the sport to be.

 

...and I think that those who feel that keeping a fish to eat is somehow wrong...are missing the essence of the sport, or at least what I consider the essense of the sport to be.

[sam-cox]

Hello Sharkbyte I have had walkers by tell me live baiting (and all angling) is cruel.

As you know mate I have trouble with people looking in my bucket, this doesnt seem to matter wheather Im bassing from a pier or perching by the river. Its got so bad that I know put my coat over my live bait bucket. But now all they do is take my coat off my bucket then make all those comments. I use a white bucket and will be writting **** off nosey in the bottom!