Cliff Hatton
Well-known member
Would you change your fishing methods?
All branches of angling are predicated on the hooking of a fish, the penetration of a fish’s lip or mouth area with a curved, pointed piece of steel. Whether or not this violation of a fish’s body actually hurts in the way humans feel pain has been debated for decades. The most up-to-date, scientific advice is that fish do not and cannot feel pain as we know it.
But pain or no pain, we can still physically damage our quarry, reducing its resistance to disease and generally jeopardizing its life-chances: careless handling, unnecessarily long retention, deep hooking, heavy tactics…even the most humane capture is an experience a fish would decline, I’m sure.
Nonetheless, we anglers are essentially kindly souls who reconcile their fish-hooking activities with their love of the natural world and concern for the environment; we take the view, I believe, that all living things have their crosses to bear and that a fish’s lot is relatively cushy: when did you last hear of a family of bream dying in a house-fire, or brother and sister roach sustaining fatal injuries in a multi-car pile-up on the M6?
Naturally, we do our best to look after our captures and have self-imposed rules considered ridiculous by most of the world’s fisher-people, but could we do more? This question is asked not because I see us as anything other than caring, humane fisher-folk; only to determine if there are mildly undesirable aspects of our practice we could shed with few or no ill effects on our way of life.
A much-respected colleague of mine would ban the hooking of worms and all other live-bait with the exception of maggots because they’re maggots and it’s all they deserve; but his ‘one-rod only’ idea has some merit, I think, in its distillation of angling’s essence: Man against fish. To fish two, three or four rods makes it, effectively, men against fish, he says. To be sure, the sight of a fly-fisher single-mindedly pursuing a brook trout with a thin wand and a near-weightless scrap of fluff captures a truer picture of what fishing is all about – doesn’t it? Contrast this with a modern carping scenario and you’ll have to agree! I’m not knocking carpers here (though heaven knows some deserve it), just trying to determine what constitutes ‘fishing’ most precisely.
One man, one rod - a 'purer' kind of angling?
Treble hooks. Are they necessary? If, indeed, you consider that they are, might you consider fishing a little less effectively in order to inflict one less wound? (for it is a wound, like it or not) How about the number of trebles on a lure? Three trebles on a lure makes a reasonably enthusiastic strike almost impossible to miss. Would you be happy to see a two – or one – treble ruling imposed on lure manufacturers and anglers – even if it meant reducing the chance of a hook-up?
And what about live-baiting? The most enthusiastic and prolific live-baiter I ever knew was the late Martin Gay; he really made it an art form, experimenting with different hooking-points to see how the bait-fish might flutter more enticingly – and it paid dividends. Martin was extraordinarily successful with pike and this was clearly attributable to his use of thoughtfully (!) presented live fish.
Was the happiness and spiritual well-being of the sentient Human Being, Martin Gay, more important than that of a six-inch roach? Was the sum total of world happiness enhanced or reduced by this seemingly cruel act? Many would say ‘yes’ to both points! As it happened, Martin did a complete about-turn in the mid-90s and never live-baited again.
So…what would you ban / limit / discourage? What about the back-filling of lakes with boilies? If you would defend a carper’s right to use as much ‘ground-bait’ as he wishes, would you condemn the mass-baiting regimes recommended by sponsored carpers and their ilk? If so, why?
Nothing would stop me fishing other than a serious illness but I think it fair to question myself – and others – from time to time, if only to have some ready answers for those who would convert us to yoghurt-knitting.
All branches of angling are predicated on the hooking of a fish, the penetration of a fish’s lip or mouth area with a curved, pointed piece of steel. Whether or not this violation of a fish’s body actually hurts in the way humans feel pain has been debated for decades. The most up-to-date, scientific advice is that fish do not and cannot feel pain as we know it.
But pain or no pain, we can still physically damage our quarry, reducing its resistance to disease and generally jeopardizing its life-chances: careless handling, unnecessarily long retention, deep hooking, heavy tactics…even the most humane capture is an experience a fish would decline, I’m sure.
Nonetheless, we anglers are essentially kindly souls who reconcile their fish-hooking activities with their love of the natural world and concern for the environment; we take the view, I believe, that all living things have their crosses to bear and that a fish’s lot is relatively cushy: when did you last hear of a family of bream dying in a house-fire, or brother and sister roach sustaining fatal injuries in a multi-car pile-up on the M6?
Naturally, we do our best to look after our captures and have self-imposed rules considered ridiculous by most of the world’s fisher-people, but could we do more? This question is asked not because I see us as anything other than caring, humane fisher-folk; only to determine if there are mildly undesirable aspects of our practice we could shed with few or no ill effects on our way of life.
A much-respected colleague of mine would ban the hooking of worms and all other live-bait with the exception of maggots because they’re maggots and it’s all they deserve; but his ‘one-rod only’ idea has some merit, I think, in its distillation of angling’s essence: Man against fish. To fish two, three or four rods makes it, effectively, men against fish, he says. To be sure, the sight of a fly-fisher single-mindedly pursuing a brook trout with a thin wand and a near-weightless scrap of fluff captures a truer picture of what fishing is all about – doesn’t it? Contrast this with a modern carping scenario and you’ll have to agree! I’m not knocking carpers here (though heaven knows some deserve it), just trying to determine what constitutes ‘fishing’ most precisely.
One man, one rod - a 'purer' kind of angling?
Treble hooks. Are they necessary? If, indeed, you consider that they are, might you consider fishing a little less effectively in order to inflict one less wound? (for it is a wound, like it or not) How about the number of trebles on a lure? Three trebles on a lure makes a reasonably enthusiastic strike almost impossible to miss. Would you be happy to see a two – or one – treble ruling imposed on lure manufacturers and anglers – even if it meant reducing the chance of a hook-up?
And what about live-baiting? The most enthusiastic and prolific live-baiter I ever knew was the late Martin Gay; he really made it an art form, experimenting with different hooking-points to see how the bait-fish might flutter more enticingly – and it paid dividends. Martin was extraordinarily successful with pike and this was clearly attributable to his use of thoughtfully (!) presented live fish.
Was the happiness and spiritual well-being of the sentient Human Being, Martin Gay, more important than that of a six-inch roach? Was the sum total of world happiness enhanced or reduced by this seemingly cruel act? Many would say ‘yes’ to both points! As it happened, Martin did a complete about-turn in the mid-90s and never live-baited again.
So…what would you ban / limit / discourage? What about the back-filling of lakes with boilies? If you would defend a carper’s right to use as much ‘ground-bait’ as he wishes, would you condemn the mass-baiting regimes recommended by sponsored carpers and their ilk? If so, why?
Nothing would stop me fishing other than a serious illness but I think it fair to question myself – and others – from time to time, if only to have some ready answers for those who would convert us to yoghurt-knitting.
