"Catch and release" rationale?

[captn' squinty]

hey i agree about bream being resilient...

the fish i release usually speed off as soon as they get wet again.

i take my fare share to eat, cos i love fish. also if u think u are saving the environment by saving the fish and having a steak for dinner instead, u might be wrong. im no expert but think about big time agriculture and farming... land degradation maximum. degraade the land, stuff the water, take a look at the murray river basin. u might best be eating the bream... dunno , can anyone qualified enlighten me on this thought?

[madsurfe]

now look at this closeup of a fish from the mangroves. It has nice unmarked lips

[rigzz]

Wingala,
Thanks for the scoop. I've just finished a 10 week stint of 7/7 work commitments so will be able to check out your suggestions. Thanks heaps.
Rigzz.

[rigzz]

Chopper,
Two interesting questions there. In regards to fish feeling pain when they get a hook in their lip I think there is growing evidence that they do feel it. (I am mindful of trouty's views on academics though). However, it is unclear whether that pain is any more severe than that felt when performing a range of other natural activities. Remember, fish don't have hands so they 'feel' thngs with their mouth. In the process they no doubt feel some pain on a regular basis. A fine debarbed hook in their lip is probably an inconsequential issue for them.

The matter of hooks rusting is also an interesting one. Theoretically, hooks will rust out in a short time. However, the time taken varies depending on issues like water salinity and the construction of the hook. Obviously, a hook that is cadmium plated is going to take longer to rust out than a standard 'bronzed' one (the brown ones). This raises an interesting point. As anglers we can't use heavily rustproofed hooks but then also claim the 'it rusts out in 3 days' argument to our critics. Personally, I use standard bronzed trebles on all my HBs (debarbed of course) and sharpen/replace them as necessary.

Sorry for the lengthy reply but I take catch and release seriously and believe we need to make EVERY effort to minimise ongoing damage to fish.
Cheers,
Rigzz

Hey trouty...
I'd reply properly to your post about uni students but i wasnt listening to you...
It does however appear that uni students have got one positive some people could take notice of...
They dont make STUPID generalizations!

Dave

[Pukka]

I think fish do feel "pain", but I don't believe it's in the same way
we do. Anyone who's grabbed a freshly caught flatty' or bass by the mouth knows that 9 times out of ten they will react when you make that first grip.
However, if they have "feeling" in their mouthes, how do they put up with the pain of bloody lips and broken/worn teeth? Maybe they have the ability to block out the pain, or maybe getting into a "feeding frenzy" induces some kind of mental block - who knows.

On the subject of catch and release. I believe a large majority of lure caught fish do survive, but species vary. Jewfish and pelagics, for example, are not so resilient, so more care has to be taken.

Also, reading Snag's story about the attack lure he found in a flatty and the state the trebles were in, I wouldn't worry too much about hooks doing too much damage.

Pukk'

[Mim]

It does however appear that uni students have got one positive some people could take notice of...
They dont make STUPID generalizations!

Hey Dave I am also a uni student, and if you read Trouty's post accurately he stated Seldom do you find the young academic who asks intelligent questions, considers the responses at depth, equates it with the theory they have learnt and then askes a more detailed well thought out, followup question based on what they just learnt from the anectdotal information the pro will relate. Occasionally you do and I've been fortunate to meet a few but mostly they are in the minority, apparently listening is not a skill they learn at Uni.
Theres room for academic learning and much to be gained from it
I therefore take no offence to what he said as what he said is often true. All us Uni students need to stop and listen to what others have to say. One of the things emphasised to us all throughout my undergrad degree and now again at a masters level is to critically evaluate all that you are told. That means listen to what people have to say. Hear both sides of the story and then make up your own mind to what is the truth and what is bull. I have had many debates with lecturers about what they determine to be the "truth" that I have found to be untrue in the real world.

I also agree with Trouty that many young academics are full of their own self-worth and have little or no real world experience to base their judgements on.

As my dad always used to say "Stop and smell the roses, take time to understand, not just listen to words"

Cheers

Mim

I'm reminded of an incident some time ago that has helped "color" my opinion of academia (and the qualifications they issue).

Baiscally IMHO as long as you can figure out what it is the lecturer wants you to spew out and spew it out verbatim in that fashion on time - you should pass. (i.e. Givem what they want - not necessarily what you think or believe).

While working for CALM I had a ranger (now a degree qualified district manager) working for us - who was doing his studies largely by correspondence, due to his location a/c his job.

He submitted his final thesis on Jarrah Dieback disease (Phytophthera cinnamomi) and it's effect on Eucalypts etc.

Anyway - CALM at the time was conducting much of the leading edge research on the fungus and this fellow had access to the scientists conducting the research work. They went out of their way to point him in the right direction with all the latest research projects details and results obtained - many of which were debunking "current" theory.

Anyway - long story short - he failed.

In the end the executive director of CALM Dr Syd Shea took up his case and went to the university(along with a few of our research scientists), and basically had to FORCE the uni lecturer to admit that the curriculum they were teaching was out of date / old hat and mostly WRONG.

The guy got his pass and degree eventually but it took threats from Syd to have the Premier at the time dismiss the lecturer from his Uni lecturer position.

In many cases sadly uni lecturers may not 'keep up' with current trends in research done by industry / govt, much of it still newly published etc.

All they seem to want is for you to regurgitate what they have in their heads is the "answers" they seek to the questions they set - and unless you do regurgitate what they want - you don't pass.

The key then becomes - learning to read/become aware of the lecturers prejudices, avoid them and regurgitate verbatim at the right time, exactly the answers he seeks, whether or not you know them to be right or wrong, in order to obrtain a pass. I'm not sure that teaches students to think independantly or latterally as well as they will need in their eventual working careers.

In addition - most of them, when they graduate and achieve a professional position will often be in managerial positions moreso that purely research. This requires them to relate to their neighbours clients staff etc etc...and sadly some of them just don't seem to be equipped adequately to do so.

I recall one Canberra ANU Forestry grad they sent me as a District Manager to train. In the end, I went to the local govt minister to get him transferred somewhere outta harms way before his own staff and neighbours lynched him..

They did put him somewhere that didn't require such refined people skills, until he eventually was required to address a group of visiting Japanese "tree farm" investors. Afterwards the visitors asked Syd - if this was they guy who would be in charge of managing their investement...because they were very worried.

Afterward Syd gave him is 24 hour marching orders - and last I heard he was in Qld somewhere.

After that Syd never doubted my judgement again!

People skills are something some graduates just don't seem have sometimes and some academics could get bye without them if all they ever did was laboratory research maybe.

Often as not tho - they will end up needing them sooner or later, and maybe uni's should put in more effort to help them in that regard?.

Of course my comments don't apply to ALL students or ALL lecturers, I've met lots of good ones of both kinds.

I amjust a little learey tho as a result of what I've seen - it's the system we have tho - it may not be perfect but it's what we have abd we have to work with it - but that shouldn't mean it can't be improved.

Someone with a degree will get a "certain amount of respect" from me, comensurate with the fact they hold a degree and obviously did the required hard slog to get it. Any respect beyond that they earn the hard way - just like anyone else - by there actions deeds and words.

Cheers!

[tryhard]

So how did the dinner go Wingala - did you hold the line and re-educate some of these people or were their ears sewn shut as Trouty suggested.

The subject of fish feeling pain or not has been debated many many time on just about every fishing forum in the world and there is always great support fore and against, but Iam yet to hear the question put to anglers, would you still fish if it was proven that fish do feel and suffer pain?
I wonder what the answer from most anglers would be, I for one would keep on fishing. So I guess the reality is that I don't care if they do or not, sad maybe but true. At least I'm honest enough to admit it.
Now I ask you my fellow fisho's what would you do?, Interesting huh?

Cheers Samurai

[torvic]

The academic system below post graduate studies IMO isnt always about truth and discovery, its about results! I remember our maths teacher telling us this year - "... you aren't here to learn, your here to be ranked!"

Take physics for example. The physics involved in our syllabus is actually quite complicated, to the point that the required knowledge the curriculum council wants is often simplified & even wrong!

Our physics teacher is a highly talented individual, he's quite simply really really smart and knows his stuff. 40 years teaching calculus/physics and other high powered subjects says so, he's one of those people who do it for the passion and not the money.

Anyway, he teaches us things properly, which often results in him doing a trig proofs on the overhead that no one can follow and leave us more confused than before, but at least its right, we think haha . When we looked at the answers provided from outside sources for the past TEE exam papers, they were so dodgy it wasn't funny!

It came to the point that our teacher spefically told us - if they ask us how sound waves propagate, about which way the air molecules collide, dont give them the true answer, give them what they want (which was actually wrong).

So yeah, just saying that the academic system isn't always right. I dont doubt there are lecturers like mentioned above by trouty who are outdated yet expect certain things from students which aren't always correct. Thats why you need to keep an open mind, be selfish and listen to what others say, that way you might be taking something valuable in while they have to do all the blabbing

Pff, who cares about science. We dont even know how light works, atomic physics is still a theory, and nuclear techniques produce alot of energy

[torvic]

And about fish feeling pain, I think they do. Pain is a homeostatic mechanism - it allows us to maintain optimal conditions with our body. If we didn't have pain you could chop your hand off by accident without realising...we need pain to survive, you get the idea...

Its a simple system, if it hurts, then somethings wrong! I've heard from somewhere that fish don't feel true pain, they feel sensations and spook away, but then that kind of system requires extra intelligence as then they need to evaluate what kind of sensation it is...fish can't be constantly flinching from everything they feel!

And if life is hard for humans I shouldn't think it should be any easier for bream hehe If they need food, and theres food inside sharp mussels, then they'l cut themselves up getting to it.

My opinion only

who cares about science. We dont even know how light works, atomic physics is still a theory, and nuclear techniques produce alot of energy

You speak fa yaself sunshine!

Lemme se now - run this by ya physics perfessa!

Einstein E = MC^2
Bearden E = Δ TC^2

the trouty GUT (Thats Grand Unification Theorem) to you sunshine is obtained by resolving Einsteins Theory of relativity and Bearden's theory of Time energy.

Thus,

If

E = MC^2

& also

E = Δ TC^2

it follows that

MC^2 = Δ TC^2

Which further resolves to what for students in time to come, who will study physics at university, will come to learn as the trouty GUT,

M = Δ T

Thats right, ****Mass equals Change in Time****.

Yup - you heard it here first at breammasters where all ground breaking research takes place.

You see - Mass is in effect just Time energy "compressed" for want of a better word by the factor of C^2 which is a powerful lot of energy in anyones language (actually it's ~ 9 x 10 ^16 Joules of energy / second) errr roughly!

So...while you may still be trying to fighure out how we get a nuclear explosion (or 9 x 10 ^ 16 Joules of energy released from splitting the atom (think 'Mass' thickhead!) , ol trouser trout is figuring out how to get the SAME amount of energy from TIME!

One should never assume anything inthis world - for much of the Maxwellian vector theory Quantum mechanics your learning at Uni will one day be discarded, in favor of troutys GUT theorem.

This by the way is how Bearden explains his theory of Time energy:

Dear Shann (trouty),

The question certainly is not a dumb question!

To first order, time seems to have the same energy density as mass does. Here's how to look at it.

Suppose you take some spatial energy (in 3-dimensional space) and compress it by the factor c-squared. That's a whale of a lot of compression, something on the order of 9x10exp16.

So what can you do with that piece of highly compressed energy?

If you just leave it in 3-space, it is what we call "mass".

If you remove it from 3-space and place it over on the 4th axis, that is over on "ict" where the only variable is t. So the only place it can fit is in "t". There it is called "time".

So time is actually highly compressed energy.

In quantum field theory, they even recognize a photon that is "polarized" on the time axis. That is, its energy is oscillating on that fourth axis, as a slight compression and rarefaction of time itself.

For simple work and understanding, it boils down to a second being some 9x10exp16 joules of EM energy, removed from 3-space and compressed into time.

It then follows that, if you "decompress" a little time into spatial energy, you will get enormous joules of energy (i.e., 9x10exp16) for every second of time you transduce into 3-space energy.

Remember, energy can be change in form, between any two forms, at least in theory.

So by "using a little time", one can produce enormous EM energy in space, in spatial circuits.

It turned ou t that all 3-space energy comes from the time domain anyway, being time converted into 3-space energy. And it also returns from 3-space back to the time domain, in an ongoing "circulation" in 4-space. That is decidedly not taken into account in the present physics!

What actually changes is the very notion of "propagation" of energy through 3-space. Actually, nothing can move in 3-space a priori; if it moves, it has to move in 4-space instead.

Best wishes,

Tom Bearden

Take notes Torvic,

Einstein
Bearden
Trouty

One day you'll be able to tell your kids you conversed with one or two of the worlds greatest intellects after Einstein!

Nowif you want to get into C^2 (the speed of light) and why it isn't constant (but merely acts as a costant in near earth space, well then we will need to talk about Mitchellson Morleys rotational analogue experiements (and later Sagnacs - mitchellsons repeatsof the same experiments) which BOTH produced small (but at the time considered statistically insignificant) diffrerences in the measured speeds of their two light beams.

For that you will need to read my "Solar tea cup analogy" for the proof of the eteherof space, which might chew a little bandwidth - but I'm game if you are!

Cheers!

[wingala]

Cheers tryhard,
Yes dinner was very pleasant (my anglo heritage, forbids to say otherwise at the table).
Dining with people with differing opinions is always an adventure for me. The topic was raised pretty soon after I said how much I loved their shnouzer dog. I then threw the question on the table
"Do you think shnouzers taste the same as beagles?" as I have had some outstanding beagle dishes in asia.
I am still limping from the bruises on my shins from my Fiona"s deadly accurate boot.
On the pain topic. whilst thinking of my shins.
Sure fish feel pain. Probably just like us. However
My opinion is based on that annual experience I had today.
"THE BINDI BALLET" that entertaining dance you do when trapped between the front gate and the road.
In late spring your feet are softer and more sensitive. So the first bindii to drill its way into your foot is a memorable one.
By mid summer the souls of your feet are like leather. If you go bare foot. By then you can laugh at the bindii.
Get to the point I hear you say!
Fishes mouthes are surely sensitive but are also hardened by callous and keeloid scarring.
The only explanation I can see is that when you mouth hook a fish they fight like the bejeeezers. But when you snag , jag or cheek hook one. they are quite obedient.
Alot like when someone has you by the ear or the short and curlies. I do tend to think that a deep incision from a rusty or dull hook could well lead to infection or abcess. keep yoor hooks sharp and clean. Just like any cutting tool i guess

"Do you think shnouzers taste the same as beagles?" as I have had some outstanding beagle dishes in asia.

I'm reliably informed that marinading schnouser in tabasco in the fridge for 24 hours before cooking it, improves the taste markedly to the point it's probably close to that of beagle tenderloin, (not to mention the fridge treatement quietens the little snappy buggers down sufficiently to get em into the boiling water without getting bit!) ;D

The Beagles tho make a far better trolling bait, they can keep up with the boat longer than the schnouzer!

Cheers!