Tope Teeth

[Captain Fishy Finger]

Great to see so many people keen on catching tope on yaks. Just a little bit of safety advice for you.

Tope have an anti-coagulant coating on thier teeth so if one bites or grazes your skin you could potentialy bleed to death before you could paddle back to shore. Take care, cut off hooks from the tope they will rust away in a few weeks. Enjoy

[darnsarf]

Greatt bit of info and advice CFF. Just hope it isnt needed

[kennosen]

Would a gererous glob of vaseline sort that out? Then a nice bit of gause or a small dressing.

[Captain Fishy Finger]

Would a gererous glob of vaseline sort that out? Then a nice bit of gause or a small dressing.

Maybe, maybe not. the problem is the blood coming from a wound would not clot as it should, a dressing may slow the flow. at the end of the day make sure you don't get caught by the teeth.

[YakDiver]

is the tope the only fish that has that coating on its teeth?

I've only caught on and that was a 30lb off the needles

[snakey1]

Not sure about anti-coagulants but all sharks both small and large should be handled with care as their bites carry a very high risk of secondary infections (they don't brush their teeth very often ). its wise to also remember that even small sharks such as tope can bite with a force ranging into the many hundreds of pounds per square inch and a sixty pound pi**ed off tope could easily remove a large part of a stray hand or foot. So in the words of a hill street blues sergeant "lets be careful out there".

[Moonyaker]

Hi Captain Birds Eye! OK.... 'Captain Fishy Finger' to avoid litigation if you please...). This is somewhat technical advice that I doubt that anyone on this forum would not take heed of but could I be so bold as to ask your profession? I am not questioning your advice for one moment; just curious and looking for some kind of endorsement. We may (will probably), want to pick your brains on other matters!!!!!!!

[corydoras]

..."lets be careful out there".

I guess I should not really be posting in here as I have never fished from a kayak, nor for tope but I am curious.

 

What if you caught a big un, say 150lb plus, how would one handle a fish this size when fishing from a kayak?

[YakDiver]

I guess I should not really be posting in here as I have never fished from a kayak, nor for tope but I am curious.

 

What if you caught a big un, say 150lb plus, how would one handle a fish this size when fishing from a kayak?

 

if is was me I would poo poo myself and then cut the line

I don't really know very large fish have been caught from kayaks in USA so I don't see why not in the UK

[Starvinmarvin]

Possibly the largest fish caught to date in the UK from a kayak are the Tope caught by Phooey and Nifty last month, guestimated at around 60 lb by the local Tope charter that happened to be passing, (they had just had one of 74 lb), the American have caught some big fish, Marline, Dorado, Threshers, Halibut, the Threshers which they deal with very abruptly I believe, bullet through the head and then pull them aboard and take them home for tea, breakfast, dinner, tea, supper, breakfast, dinner, tea etc.

 

The kayaks are increadibly stable and there is no reason that we can't catch anything caught by the boat fishermen, and I'm sure that some will be trying to beat that Tope record next year when the big females are back close in, or possibly Porbeagles later this year.

 

The most important thing to most of us UK kayakfishermen is that these large sport fish are returned unharmed.

 

SM