Fish welfare - or just OTT

[Anderoo]

Bottom line for me is this - catch and release fishing is irrational and ultimately unkind in some way to fish. Fish do not want to get caught. We can argue all day about where on the spectrum of 'welfare' is appropriate for catch and release angling, but be in no doubt that we are in a tiny minority of thinking anything we do has any element of 'welfare' to it.

 

Sticking a hook into a fish's mouth, playing it in a state of stress until it's exhausted enough to net, bringing it out of the water to unhook (maybe weighing and photos too), and letting it go again - consider two scenarios where in one the fish is laid on the ground while the hook is removed and another where it is laid on a mat or in a cradle. One is fine, even applauded, and the other is utterly disrespectful and disgusting? Maybe in our weird little world of UK angling, I doubt very much the fish think so, and I'm sure non-anglers don't think so!

 

The people who practice the best fish welfare of all are non-anglers. We are completely horrible to fish. Don't kid yourselves.

[Tigger]

I pretty much agree with Anderoo's post above but there is a flip side to catch and release which is of course the fact that the fish gets to live to fight another day where as if we ate everything we caught there would be sweat FA left in our waters.

Also the fish do get benefits like protection, including their habitat and for every fish caught there will be lots of others that just get a belly full of freebies .

[gozzer]

gozzer

 

If you play devils advocate, then I presume you want a response and if it pee's you off that some are defending the use of Carp Cradles at Carp waters in a thread called Fish Welfare- or just OTT, well maybe it would be better to not to play D. A. ?

 

And who is preaching to you, it's up to you if you take up freely given advise, that I presume is what a Forum is for ?

 

As for taking pictures, your doing it again, trying to give a reason why you feel we need to use a mat, but reality many of us use a mat whether taking pictures or not.

 

Know one is saying you have to do anything, they are saying follow the rules of the fishery or club, it's your choice !!

 

Bob

 

I don't think you quite understood my post Bob. If a person wants to use any form of cushioning/cradle for resting a fish on to unhook, it's their choice, and fine by me. If after doing this, they then choose to have a picture taken, and lift the fish off the ground to do so, don't you agree it defeats the the object a bit? If they feel a fish is safer cradled in something stable, or cushioned on something at ground level, then the act of lifting it 2 or 3 feet of the ground just to get a nice picture, is somewhat hypocritical in my opinion. All I said was that if they 'preach' (and yes, that is the right word), that the welfare of the fish is paramount, then they should "go the whole hog", and not just practice those bits that suit them.

As to using the word "preach", you obviously haven't been on a forum when someone's posted a picture of a fish laid on grass. The poor sod usually got castigated for his poor fish welfare, and lectured, and preached to, about the role of the angler in looking after his catch, etc etc etc. We don't have it as much on here now, I thing most of the 'preachers' have left. I do however still see it on other forums.

For what it's worth, Andrew, (Anderoo), as pretty much summed up my feeling in his last post, and that adds more weight to my belief that hypocrisy is rife within angling.

 

John.

[Steve Walker]

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

An' foolish notion:

What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,

An' ev'n devotion!

[gozzer]

Who are you calling a louse, Steve?

 

John.

[Steve Walker]

Amused by how this would look to an outsider - people who drag fish out of the water by sticking hooks in their faces arguing over who asphyxiates them on the most comfortable surface.

[gozzer]

Amused by how this would look to an outsider - people who drag fish out of the water by sticking hooks in their faces arguing over who asphyxiates them on the most comfortable surface.

 

And don't forget they argue over which fish is the best one to be asphyxiated as well, Steve!

 

John.

[Mark Wintle]

Asphyxiated cod for tea tonight....

[BobH]

Bottom line for me is this - catch and release fishing is irrational and ultimately unkind in some way to fish. Fish do not want to get caught. We can argue all day about where on the spectrum of 'welfare' is appropriate for catch and release angling, but be in no doubt that we are in a tiny minority of thinking anything we do has any element of 'welfare' to it.

 

Sticking a hook into a fish's mouth, playing it in a state of stress until it's exhausted enough to net, bringing it out of the water to unhook (maybe weighing and photos too), and letting it go again - consider two scenarios where in one the fish is laid on the ground while the hook is removed and another where it is laid on a mat or in a cradle. One is fine, even applauded, and the other is utterly disrespectful and disgusting? Maybe in our weird little world of UK angling, I doubt very much the fish think so, and I'm sure non-anglers don't think so!

 

The people who practice the best fish welfare of all are non-anglers. We are completely horrible to fish. Don't kid yourselves.

Anderoo

 

And that is the crux of the problem as I said in a post pages ago, sticking hooks in fish is not considered quite right by a large section of the public now !!

 

But as I could not give a flying fig what some tree hugging bunny lover thinks of fishing, why should I care, well I care because this has become a strange old country and it's not beyond the wit of man to go down the route of the Green party and try and ban angling.

 

Or say you have to kill all your captures as in one European country ?

 

This country has become a P. C. world, where common sense has gone out the window and being seen to abide by some codes of fish welfare might not do any good, but at least by using Mats/Cradles we are addressing a potential problem.

 

Most multi species anglers, do unhook the smaller species in a net or on soft grass, but in my experience the majority of specimen angler (I included Carp Anglers) use unhooking mats/cradles when they unhook the bigger species, not because they have been brain washed or influenced by advertising or anglers who have never caught a really big fish of any species in their lives, but because it's softer on a mat than the majority of man made or natural swims.

 

The rest of the rubbish about photo's is spouted by a very small minority who have not caught many really big fish or have a bee in their bonnets about how awful it is of those terrible big fish catcher to take a photo of their captures be it on soft grass (as we use to) or over the mats or cradles.

 

Sorry lads, but I see a bit of the " Green Eye Monster " thing appearing here !

 

Bob

[Anderoo]

Number of regular anglers in the UK - about 2-3 million.

 

Number of 'tree hugging bunny lovers' (AKA non-anglers) in the UK - 61-62 million.

 

That's why