Live-baiting is cruel and barbaric

[ayjay]

I can see no excuse for live-baiting. No excuses needed, it's a legitimate and effective method.It is a cruel and barbaric practice. Not cruel, not yet proved that fish feel pain unless you are from PETA who will believe anything that suits them, it's no different to using maggots

I note it is still being widely used though and the angling papers record catches from live-baiting every week.Of course, any less would be poor journalism

The recent record perch hauled out of the Thames was caught by live-baiting.Hauled? Strange choice of word.

There are many other ways of catching predators without inflicting cruelty on other fish. Do we really need to impale roach or dace on a hook before sending it to flail around before being devoured. More emotive stuff, are you sure you're an angler and not from PETA?

Perhaps the British Records Fish committee should cease to record such catches?Absolute nonsense from the realms of fantasy

 

I, as do most anglers I'm sure, make every effort to care for the fish we catch.

Surely, live baiting is just ammunition for the antis.No more than your ill considered rant

 

Now I am a angling beginner but there are others who have fished for decades who agree.Perhaps you should gain more experience before making such provocative posts about something you almost certainly have no first hand knowledge of.

 

According to fishing legend Fred J Taylor, who has just been awarded an MBE in the most recent honours list, and who was interviewed in this week's Angling Times: “I'd like to be remembered as the man who developed deadbaiting to such an extent that most anglers now use deads as opposed to live-baits – and someone who saved countless thousands of small fish from being stuck on a hook and dangled in front of a pike.”Fred Taylor will be remembered for many things, but I doubt if deadbaiting will be what comes to mind first for most of us

 

John Aston, in his excellent book 'A Dream of Jewelled Fishes', said: “I do find it curious – no ludicrous – that the people who encourage me to look after my pike as if it were a premature baby are the same ones who continue to support the barbarity of live-baiting. Tell me this – why is the life of a roach, dace or bream somehow inferior to a pike's? How does the live-baiter reconcile his respect for the quarry with his contempt for the bait fish? In an environment where unhooking mats are de rigueur, how can it be right to stick a treble hook into a roach's back and, as for the practice of releasing unused live baits into waters in which they are not even found naturally... I could find the words, I could write a paragraph of coruscating criticism but should I really need to? I could find the words, I could write a paragraph of coruscating reply but should I really need to, when emotive phrases like "contempt for the bait fish" have been put into the mouths of the live baiter?

 

Now many use Anglers Net for fishing advice on where to fish and what tackle to use. Rightly so.

But let's not shirk some of the wider issues about angling.

Lets hope we can have a sensible debate though. Some may see my comments as lighting a blue touch paper before retiring.Maybe you're not as new as you make out I certainly don't intend to hide though I''m sanguine about the prospect of digging a foxhole in response to a hostile barrage of incoming replies. Then again, perhaps many others on this forum agree with my views? Let me know.I think I just did, but I'll make it perfectly clear, livebaiting is a legitimate method and if I want to use it I will

Edited January 16, 2008 by ayjay

[Steve Walker]

So what you're basically saying is that you are opposed to sticking hooks in live fish? Have you thought that through?

[poledark]

TT, with you 100% mate. To me, after 60+ years angling, and a lover of Roach in particular, I find the practise of TETHERING a live fish, sometimes for hours, repugnant. I have done it at various times over the years, but I am glad I fish where it is banned, so I no longer have to fight with my consience.

 

Fish may not feel pain as we know it, but they do experience a degree of fear, which is why they flee from shadows and movements.

 

The argument that I should give up fishing as it involves sticking hooks in fish, is a valid one, but like some smokers, I find it hard to give up. But the practise of tempting, hooking and landng a fish,is quite a long way removed from deliberately tethering one up to be eaten.

 

So I will join you in your foxhole

 

Den

Edited January 16, 2008 by poledark

[pikergonecarpin]

This subjct always seems to rear it's head on forums every now and then, like the good old "ban keepnets" issue.

 

I have one question for the original poster, have you ever foul hooked a fish? Did you feel so guilty about having hooked the said fish in the fin or back? If the answer is yes, maybe you should, as has been said before sell you rods. This sport might not be for you.

 

To me there is absolutely no difference between sticking hooks in a fishes mouth or it's back when livebaiting. And i have no qualms about doing so when i want to live bait. Also, to me, there is no moral difference between livebaiting and knocking a roach on the head to use as a deadbait later, either way the fish is going to end up dead.

 

Paul.

[Peter M]

My god tiddlertamer you really are brave or foodhardy to bring up this subject . Personally i don't live bait for pike, my choice, my reasons. However, where it is legal to do so and carried out sensitivly by experienced pike anglers i don't have a problem. i have more of a problem with inexperienced pike anglers static dead baiting without a clue as to what they are doing.

[Chubstar]

I livebait where allowed, occasionally. The livebaits are released from the hook after about an hour unless I have had a take, and usually recover with no ill affects, they are kept in a livebait bucket with an aerator pump so they are in no discomfort while being held captive, at the end of a session the unused fish are returned to the lake from which they came, they are kept humanely, and as far as possible, used humanely too, all manner of baits are live when they are mounted on a hook, not just small fish, or do you just use bread and tinned meat or sweetcorn etc?

Edited January 16, 2008 by Chubstar

[Anderoo]

I just typed out a long reply which then disappeared

 

Please read this thread: http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/forums/livebai...ivebait+banning

 

A couple of my posts from it:

 

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It's not the 'antis' anglers need to be concerned about. It's the (very easy to influence) general public - voters.

 

I use livebait occasionally (very occasionally these days) and it's absolutely true that on some waters deadbaits and lures are a waste of time. However, that doesn't mean that livebaiting is 'necessary', inasmuch as no angling is 'necessary'.

 

I still maintain that certain angling practices will die off naturally over the next generation, and livebaiting will be one of them. Over the last 15 years the number of anglers I meet who say they used to do it but don't any more because it doesn't seem acceptable to them has massively increased. Circumstantial, yes, but also a kind of evidence that tastes change over time without legislation (think also pike gags and throwing Zander up the bank).

 

To many anglers (let alone the public) livebaiting is not acceptable. That's irrefutable. So being told that their views are an infringement of civil liberties is insulting to say the least. It all boils down to selfishness in the end - and being comfortable with your conscience.

 

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Livebaiting is not easy, and takes a lot of effort. It is easily the most effective way of catching pike. In fact, it's such a pain in the **** that I much prefer wobbling deadbaits, especially on rivers, where I want to cover several miles of water in a day! Catching baits, lugging around a bucket of water all day, it's a nightmare - unless you stay in one swim all day or are boat fishing.

 

 

QUOTE(BUDGIE @ Sep 5 2006, 12:52 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

the threat to livebaiting is far stronger from anti live baiting anglers than it is from even the antis! let alone the general public.

 

 

Absolutely true - but consider why that is. Who knows more about it than anglers? What does that tell you?

 

I'll make my point again - antis won't be able to ban anything. (If they could they would have by now.) Neither will anglers. (Too much disagreement.) That decision - if it ever comes - will be made by the public, once/if the issue becomes politicised. It will be an exercise in PR-led, manipulative democracy. It's terrifyingly easy to outrage the British public. If there's political capital to be made from it, then you can bet it'll happen.

 

So I ask - how will your 'we shall concede nothing to treehuggers' attitude look when you're baying outside Parliament - mostly without support from fellow anglers - still refusing to see the power of public opinion? Simplistic at best, I reckon.

 

I'd like to repeat that I do use livebait and I'm not trying to be holier than thou - but we really need to consider the wider picture. It's not all about how many pike we can catch.

 

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Please also consider the following:

- Where does your luncheon meat come from?

- Where do your pellets come from?

- Where does your groundbait come from?

- Where do your deadbaits come from?

 

For all the above, how were the aminals they're made from treated before being used in these products?

 

Also:

- Do you eat meat? Especially non-free range? Drink milk? Eat eggs?

 

How much animal suffering do you directly contribute to every day because of that?

 

Unless you're a vegan who really does care properly about animal welfare, I'm sorry but your opinion on livebaiting is hypocritical and redundant. That goes for the general public and anglers alike.

Edited January 16, 2008 by Anderoo

[Newt]

Sorry to disappoint you rabbit but the only posts on this thread that will be censored are any that devolve into nasty personal attacks on other people for their views.

 

Tiddlertamer - the fuzzy logic I spoke of was you talking about how bad it is to stick a hook in a bait fish while continuing to stick hooks in fish to catch them and making no mention of why hooking a fish for bait is bad but hooking a worm or insect is OK. Those views (hook this one, OK; hook that one, bad) always struck me as being illogical. That is where the anti-live-baiting arguments always seem (to me anyway) to break down.

 

The authorities you quoted wrote a more balanced view of the topic. That is not say they are incapable of making dumb statements because we all are and they may have at some point but the quotes used here make sense. They simply don't support your premise as well as you seem to think.

 

Last point - from your title, "Live-baiting is cruel and barbaric" is an opinion expressed as if it were an unarguable fact. That sort of thing is normally intended to start a fight rather than a discussion.

[Guest tigger]

I think you should sell your rods (I'm presuming you are an angler and not some nutter) and become a vegan hermit, with that attitude.

 

 

 

 

If you don't like livebaiting just don't do it and leave other people to enjoy their fishing. I don't livebaite anymore but I may do tomorrow!

Edited January 16, 2008 by tigger

[benhben]

I could never bring myself to live bait. I agree there are plenty of ways to catch fish without the prolonged suffering of a small livebait. Deads, Lures and Wobbled baits for me please.