Mixed Bag

Quite a mixed bag from Barrie Rickards ,Firstly regarding tench chaseing lure`s ,i understand that most if not all fish are predators to a degree so nothing new there then .
Has for useing mackerel heads for bait ,there again nothing new , but as a pike angler I know they will work but they just don`t look right ,it goes against the grain so to speak, I will have to try them and hopefully prove myself wrong .

I want to address Barrie's comment on "do fish feel pain", a subject I've written about before, as you can see.

I was in discussion with someone a few weeks ago who, though not an anti-angler, is always questioning whether fish do feel pain. I was maintaining, as in the article, that they don't and she didn't seem to accept that an animal could have no need to feel pain.

Meanwhile, her lovely labrador was stood by the door, pleased to see me, whacking his tail repeatedly against the sharp corner edge. Not a mild slap, but a really good hearty whack, enough to make the door shake. There was my example.

If the dog felt pain as we do, first whack and he would be off nursing his badly bruised tail. No, he kept on, 'whack, whack, whack, whack,,,,,' and all the time smiling (in a doggy way).

So where was the pain felt by this animal with a far superior brain to a fish? Yes, dogs can feel pain in areas where it is important for them to do so (try standing on a toe), but why not in the tail? Why not also in the mouth where sharp items of bone can be turned, mouthed, and crunched.

Strange, but there it was. I think it helped convince her a little more.

I hooked a terrapin in my local canal. No idea how it got in there but we have a small colony apparantly.

It came in very quickly although the thing was as big as a dinner plate. Lets just say it wasn't exactly fighting the hook.

If fish felt pain in their mouths they would do pretty much the same. You wouldn't pull against a hook in your finger would you?

Like Barrie says to react against electricity or venom is a totally different response to feeling physical pain. Fish fight a hook because they feel restrained.

The science here is flawed, they are using the findings to prove a point rather than drawing conclusions from the probability that statistical data dictates. This probability (unless you have a massive population of subjects to draw on) is only an inference of what may be a likely cause at best.