Paul Arden wrote:Lasse, I think Bernd means their mouths, not their guts! I certainly haven't caught 100,000, but if I have a long and seedy life then I hope to!
Cheers Paul
Hi Paul
Bernd usually writes pretty ok English, better than me, so I think he talked about the stomach and not the mouth when he wrote:
It's a bit like when you want to know what a fish eats. You can read the results of a scientific study or you ask a fisherman who has opened over 100 000 of fish during his fishing live. I'd always ask both but think the fisherman has the much bigger experience always.
I could be wrong though :p
Take up euronymphing, you could start a trend of C&R for those guys
Cheers
Lasse
Ps. depending on study, the mortality rate fluctuates...
I'm in the sticks here and on an extremely slow Internet connection, however a quick search shows that not all scientific research agrees (no surprises there of course, five minutes on this Board demonstrates that :p)
But as a physician and scientist, I must choose between reason and research or an unproven but seeming obvious belief.
That paper goes on to quote many supporting scientific studies that barbless hooks result in less damage, less air time exposure and less mortality. For example:
Gjernes (1990) found that barbed hooks caused higher hooking mortality rates. Bartholomew and Bohnsack (2005) reported three studies that showed increased mortality when using barbed versus barbless hooks.
So it's not personal beliefs vs science since there are different scientific results. Scientists are very good at finding what they expect or are commissioned to find. That's how they get paid!
Hi Silver,
I couldn't find the paper online, and my dept's journal bundle doesn't include the North American Journal of Fisheries Management. Could you be more specific as to how the unhooking was done, by who, how time was measured, etc.
Is it an observation of ordinary angler's behavior, without them knowing they are observed? I must ask because when a biologist with a chrono in his hand is looking, I doubt there will be much fish "flopping around the bank".
(btw, cognitive dissonance is also what happens when confronted to something erroneous. Not saying that it is the case, but it's an hypothesis I haven't discarded yet)
Lasse Karlsson wrote:Bernd, I know you are exagerating for arguments sake here, but unless you're talking about a commercial fisherman, then 100.000 gutted and examined fish is a staggering number
Cheers
Lasse
Hi Lasse
I wasn't really exaggerating here. Indeed I was referring to net fishermen and not anglers.
The father of a good friend of mine has worked all his life long on a company which produced smoked Sea trouts. His job was to empty the nets every morning and to open up the fish. Since he was not only a net fisherman but an angler as well he was always interested in what those Sea trout would feed on during the year.
Am afraid to tell how many Sea trouts over 5 Kg he has killed. But I almost think it's impossible to top that number unless one wants to hunt these fish for another 45 years. And still we don't have the former east Germany anymore anyway where Sea trouts had a perfect feeding zone with very few net fisherman and no anglers behind them but millions of herrings and sand eels around. It was here where he was working.
Talking to him is incredable to me since Sea trout have always been my favorite kind of fish.
I have read scientific studies from Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Poland. None ever offered me such an amazing knowledge like he did.
About numbers: 20 net per night. 1,5 Sea trout each. 30 Sea trout per night. 100 days per year. 3000 fish per year. Ok, I better stop this calculation (1,5 per net would have been low in his best times).
Sure an angler would never catch that many... I have caught around 2000 within almost 25 years. And there was a year I fished 365 days in a row among them.
Again am not saying scientific studies are bad, not at all.
Sometimes it seemed to me they did not cover the whole big picture but have been focusing on just one small area of it. Sometimes this works, sometimes not.
Greets
Bernd
p.s.: Old saying in Germany: "Never trust any statistics you haven't faked on your own."
Ok, I grew up in a fishing village on the Danish coast, have had my fair share of commercial and bi-commersial friends in that industri, wealth of knowledge without a doubt!
I'm not saying scientific studeies are bad or good, as always it depends
One of my best fishing friends is also a marine biologist, did his master thesis on gyro, fun thing to help him changing the water in the tanks of his test specimens after fishing trips late at night I usually trust him when it comes to these kinds of things, funny enough he fishes barbless most of the time
sorry guys , i woudnt refer to a simple empirical study as a science and since the details differs to many of our personal experiences i dont need to "believe" it. maybe they just used wizards disguised as anglers?
i can donate for free a bit of my presonal time to reveal some disturbing truth while fushing barbed hooks on a local stream in the name of the science if you will.
PS
what happens with the mouths damaged of the fish badly hooked with barbed hooks according to a study?
Wise indeed was George Selwyn Marryat when he said: "its not the fly; its the driver"
Hi Alex,
I think some of the studies did not focus on that point...
Others said the stiletto effect to mean more damage with barbless hooks, what personally I don't believe either. Simply I have seen opposite too often.
Those fish I saw not having claws anymore were caught on barbed hooks of course.
Greets
Bernd
I find just one BS in the "barbed-barbless" debate...that barbless is holding fish better, and the barb is for holding the bait...it is, but it holds the fish better, too.
barbless reduces fish-handling time, so it's better for C&R intentions. I see it sooo simple.
Peter "...fish like a demon with a mission"-Sudesh
What we, as instructors, must do is to teach anglers how to play fish effectively. The general lack of knowledge about how to use a rod in an efficient way is amazing. Here is an example.
The angler explains that instead of using his usual 7 weight rod he had a 5 weight for catching those barbel between 1 and 2 kg. It was almost impossible to get them with such a rod, he states. Amazing.
Aitor is not like us, he is Spanish, and therefore completely mad.
Cheers, Paul
No discutas nunca con un idiota, la gente podría no notar la diferencia.
Immanuel Kant
alex vulev wrote:maybe an euronympher would get them on a 2-3# Aitor
You don't need an euronympher for that. Any angler knowing how to change the angle of his rod can get those in any rod weight!
I just like to use an 8'#4 for my barbel fishing.
Aitor is not like us, he is Spanish, and therefore completely mad.
Cheers, Paul
No discutas nunca con un idiota, la gente podría no notar la diferencia.
Immanuel Kant