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What if?


Dick Dastardly

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I've cooked pike several times as a chef and take my word for, after 6-7lbs they aren't very nice. They're not horrible. I wouldn't say they were muddy or anything, just flavourless, bland and a little wooly. The small one's make nice beer-battered goujons though, lovely with mushy peas, chips with a bit of salt and pepper. Treat them like haddies or codling, rather than trout or salmon but the bigger one's....nah I'll pass. I've eaten most things I've caught. Strangely, one of the nicest fish I've tasted is roach. That has lovely meat but it's very picky. The ribs don't stay attached to the spine after cooking so they come away with the flesh, so they're really more trouble than their worth but I'm sure there's probably a way of getting round that. It was a one off though. It's not something I'd make a habit of when there are far easier fish to prepare.

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"I envy not him that eats better meat than I do, nor him that is richer, or that wears better clothes than I do. I envy nobody but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do"

...Izaac Walton...

 

"It looked a really nice swim betwixt weedbed and bank"

...Vagabond...

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True, pike from a clean water, like the ones we get here...

 

The fish I ate were the ones you get up there! ;)

 

Wouldn't fancy eating any of the local pike down here, even if it were allowed.

 

(And I have to agree with Andy about the beer battered goujons; I used to take the best bit from the bottom of the fillet, away from the nasty Y bones, for goujons, and then de-bone and cube the rest to casserole with tomato and olives, Mediterranean style.)

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Jeeze you lot are worse than the security firm I worked for....I go away for a few days and it all goes to pieces! :D

 

Seriously though now Ive waded through the replies (having to mentally filter out all the spam so I dont get side tracked about the Nazis cracking down on racist Pakis hunting foxs with airguns then eating them or something like that?) :rolleyes:

 

Right my reason for posting these questions was that during recent threads the "Im all right" selfish attitude of many anglers has come to the fore yet again. Im not innocent of this either as I realised that some of my veiws were pretty selfish to! I had convienently selected facts and what I wished to believe to fit my purposes.

 

Namely in the "Keepnets" thread.Even though I expressed my worries (believed to such an extent that I wont keep live baits in a keepnet as I believe it may cause problems with their slime) but despite my concerns still use a keepnet (when suitable/allowed) to fullfill my own pleasure in seeing the total catch at the end of the day. All the pros and cons I did list were genuine but that said I still chose to ignore something that may be a problem to suit my own needs.

 

This got me thinking about exactly how much do us anglers actually respect our quarry ie the fish? Dont get me wrong I will do a lot to ensure that I dont damage/harm fish but these levels are obviously limited by the fact that I wish to catch them in the first place.ie if I loved them that much I would simply leave them alone and endeavour to protect both them and their habitat without "interfereing" with them as Cory or the Captains (?) Grandad would have said!

 

I think also that my wanting to not damage them and ensure the future of fish in our waters could also be deemed as selfish as if I didnt want to catch them would I really be that interested in their "welfare"?

 

I dont need to kill my catch to get my gratification and unless I ate them would see it as to much of a "waste" to justify my getting "fun" by fishing for them.Indeed much the reasons I gave up shooting in that I couldnt come to terms with the waste of the body count. At this point please note that Im not against killing anything for eating but just trying to put over my own personal feelings.

 

Same as most here I would not be prepared to go fishing if I had to kill everything I caught but didnt intend to eat.As said it would seem "wrong" /"wastefull" to me.

In the first case scenario I would simply carry on fishing but break the rule by returning.If ever this became impossible (once again Im sure this would never be so but remember "what if" is the tool Im using to try and rationalise my feelings) I to would only target sustainable species that I wished to eat.

 

Totally out lawed would just see me sneaking about (no difference there then!) doing my thing despite breaking the law.I would like most on here feel more happier in myself doing this than if I killed fish as in the first scenario!

 

So it seems that the vast majority of us would allow our own "selfish" desire to get fun by fishing to break the law without much worry (personal feelings wise anyway). But just how great would our selfish need be if the tables were flipped and the second "what if" came in to play? Most of our reasoning behind not accepting the kill all ruling would be that we respected the fish to much to just kill them all wholesale.We obviously have some "attachment" to them but have decided a long time ago in our angling careers either that we dont think that fish "feel pain" or feel it to a degree that concerns us(so we have no guilt about catching them) or simply dont care if they do/accept it and only look after them to preserve our own use for them (once again having no guilt but this time by the way that we dont care!)

 

So if it was ever proved that fish do feel pain (in a way that is unnaceptable to us) most of us think we would gladly stop.Wether I agree or not I admire the honesty (and am some what envious of their clarity of veiw) of the few who said it wouldnt stop them.

 

Me? well I think I would stop but untill it happened I honestly dont know how much my own selfishness would drive me.

 

Well to try and sum up my veiws from the whole disscusion.

 

We definately need to realise that everyone is different,so different in veiws (possibly brought about by the individual situations we find ourselves in such a diverse sport as angling as well as human individuality) that really the only thing we truely have in common is our desire to catch fish.We each see and hold fish in a different perspective and as such each have our own veiws on what is and isnt acceptable.Human nature means that we will always defend our own perspective and attack others as this is really just a way of justifying to ourselves our own thoughts/beliefs.

 

I think though that we do need to draw something from this and cling to the one thing that we do have in common. Is the guy who uses (for example) a keepnet any different to the guy who doesnt but live baits? He certainly isnt any better/worse.The guy who kills to eat different to the one who has a state of the art unhooking mat and top of the range fish medications? No I dont really think so.Different veiws and therefore different practices but none really right or wrong.

 

We all fish for our pleasure no matter how we justify it,how we do it or if we kill to eat or catch and release.The vast majority here have admitted to that.

 

Maybe just maybe the next time someone here tries to take the moral high ground and tell some one else that live baiting/use of keepnets/match fishing/barbed hooks/lures/ boillies or what the f else is selfish and wrong they should think back to this thread and remember how we all voted on these various "what if" questions.

 

I think the fox hunting thing is relevant as the recent ban/campaign for such certainly made me realise that more than my personal dislike of hunting I disliked the people (who generally without knowledge or experience) wanted to (and indeed to a degree did) impose their will on others by getting it bannedt.

 

I would rather see anglers being able to do things that I wouldnt be prepared to/rather not do than see no anglers at all!

 

All though its true when people say "without anglers who would care about whats in/under the water" its (there must be a word for it?) a bit of a nonsense as if no body cared then no body would care! We only care cause we want to catch them and as such are aware that they are there full stop! People who dont care dont! Get what Im stuggling to say? Its yet again just us trying to justify our thing.

 

Well Ive rambled a bit here and struggled to put my feelings down so please excuse me and thanks for sharing.Not over yet though as hopefully you will (if youve read my rubbish!) have some thing to say! Who knows it may even be about the topic :P

And thats my "non indicative opinion"!

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Guest tigger

What can I say..............

Great post Budgie !!

 

 

 

Err yeah Andy your right m8, I've sorted it out cockle :D

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It was a great post but it was the length of War & Peace already without you having to quote it again....lol. Elton's going to have to close a couple of forums and stick another 50p in the meter to keep that up.... ;)

¤«Thʤ«PÔâ©H¤MëíTë®»¤

 

Click HERE for in-fighting, scrapping, name-calling, objectional and often explicit behaviour and cakes. Mind your tin-hat

 

Click HERE for Tench Fishing World forums

 

Playboy.jpg

 

LandaPikkoSig.jpg

 

"I envy not him that eats better meat than I do, nor him that is richer, or that wears better clothes than I do. I envy nobody but him, and him only, that catches more fish than I do"

...Izaac Walton...

 

"It looked a really nice swim betwixt weedbed and bank"

...Vagabond...

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Great topic this :thumbs: and I believe If could turn to when.

It's Not been long since we had a similar scenario in the political sense. The Conservative government in Britain was forced to rely on UUP support to maintain its slim majority, the support came with certain strings attached.

 

Believe it or not the government in 2007 ruled that fish may feel pain, it passed a lot of people by as it did no get much coverage. so government is open to persuation and is listening when comes to animal rights

 

Times

 

I would fish on and break the law if no clear evidence was tabled regarding pain if it turned out fish did feel pain I would quit, I find killing for killing sake aborant so I also would break the law by returning my catch, but be very chosey where I'd fish

 

regards Tony

Regards Tony.

 

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

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