Traumatizing fish

MTLabrador said:
Yep, I try to be easy on the fish just to have less impact on the resource. I’m not worried about the fish being traumatized, but I am worried about lots of people handling them like crap when the water temps are too warm and killing a ton of them.
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I think you are spot on. I release as required and treat them the best I can. Fish Biologists actually use hook scaring as a metric in evaluating fish in popular streams in Montana. I too do not worry about trauma from hooking but rather fatal trauma from hooking and releasing in warm waters. I’ve seen holes stacked with dead fish that were released by purist fly fishers when the water was too warm. I have far less issue with people keeping fish than people catching and releasing fish in warm water in the summer. Pain from catching or pain from heat exhaustion? The important point is do Trout and Bass feel trauma more than Walleye, Catfish and Rockfish because some of these are headed straight to the frying pan!
 
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There’s actually been a few peer reviewed papers written on the subject of whether fish feel pain. Jury is still out, but seems like they probably don’t. I’ll stick with forum rules and not post links, but looks like a 11/7/23 article on Discover Magazine’s website called “Do Fish Feel Pain?” contains a lot of pertinent info, and titles of peer reviewed research for further perusal of the subject.

Strict C&R folks seem silly to me. I agree with BirdManMike - there’s a lot of places I won’t fish because I don’t like seeing that a majority of the fish have visible scars and are mutilated from being repeatedly caught and released. If that’s how you’re gonna fish at least do well.
 
I'm sure fish feel pain and there is no doubt some degree of trauma involved when we hook them and real them in. That doesn't bother me enough to make me stop fishing though and I don't see how it would bother anyone who hangs out on a public forum like HT which is dedicated to the joys of inflicting pain, trauma and death on other animals.
 
gouch said:
I'm sure fish feel pain and there is no doubt some degree of trauma involved when we hook them and real them in. That doesn't bother me enough to make me stop fishing though and I don't see how it would bother anyone who hangs out on a public forum like HT which is dedicated to the joys of inflicting pain, trauma and death on other animals.
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I always thank the fish for being there before I release. 😉
 
FairWeather said:
I’ll never understand diehard C&R fishermen. If you’re going to catch it, keep & eat it.
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Trolling for a scrap^

How about some numbers to process?
Upper Madison ...you know, Montana? 225, 000 people fish this river EVERY year. If every person caught and killed one trout it would virtually wipe out the entire fish population.
That is why people catch and release and there are limitations to how much you can kill.
 
jeff_gibbons said:
I watched a group fishing San Diego on a scripts research catch and tag episode. A guy caught the same fish 10 minutes after previously being caught, landed and tagged. I don’t think that fish was dealing with any trauma.
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I’ve caught the same fish before. They obviously aren’t traumatized too much.
 
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