The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

Reminiscent of some recent threads ... thought you would all find interesting


http://www...om/101/story/570796.html


'Catch and release' is popular, feel-good approach to angling, but some wonder if it's destructive

Quoting from the article

"Every parent who fishes is telling their kids that it's fun to torment and abuse animals," said Lindsay Rajt, manager of the group's (PETA) factory farming and vegan campaigns."

Well, it IS!!!

"There are a variety of ways to enjoy the outdoors that don't involve hooking a live animal by the mouth and dragging them into an environment where they can't breathe," she said."

They are not NEARLY as much fun as fishing!

Sorry, PETA, you JUST don't get it!!

You've got to wonder why the Bee felt like running this article. There are no new developments on the issue, no new research, and they did a great job of regurgitating the PETA spiel. Must have been a real slow news day, or someone at PETA has a friend at the Bee.

I figure most of CA's waters that receive heavy pressure are medium to large rivers, with fish counts in the thousands per mile. Sure doesn't seem like more than a small percentage would ever be hooked, even under daily pressure from numerous anglers. Granted many of the fish counted aren't of catchin' size, but still...

I'm going to start my own PETA group over here. People Eating Tasty Animals

too bad the author couldn't seem to add that a fishes brain only has the capacity to remember that event for less than 1 hour, some scientists say it is less than a minute, even down into the 3 second range. I guess PETA doesn't like scientific facts when it conflicts with their "message".

Heck, even my dogs can't remember to stay off the sofa, keep out of the trash, quit drinking out of the toilet for more than an hour, and dogs have a brain larger than a PEA.

troutnut wrote:
and dogs have a brain larger than a PEA.

When I first read your post I thought you said "...and dogs have a brain larger than a PETA".

-Greg
ps - like your avatar...poor kid!

troutnut wrote:
too bad the author couldn't seem to add that a fishes brain only has the capacity to remember that event for less than 1 hour, some scientists say it is less than a minute, even down into the 3 second range.

I wonder how a scientist could even prove something like that? It seems that if fish had a memory of less then an hour they would have to learn how to recognize food all over again several times a day. If they had a memory of only 3 seconds how could they feed during a hatch? Every time they ate something they'd forget what it looked like before the next one came around. It would make it very difficult to explain how fish could feed selectively if they had no memory. Ever catch fish on egg patterns after all the Salmon are gone? They seem to remember eggs are food for quite a while after they're gone.

Maybe it's instinct? I know there have been times I wished I could forget what I ate 3 seconds later. Then again, I can't remember what I ate last night for dinner, but I know I'm hungry.

Beerfly

There have been a few scientific studies trying to determine the memory length of fish, it has been argued that goldfish, well known to be the stupidest fish on the planet, have a memory span of 3 seconds ( See "Finding Nemo" the movie ) and some people including PETA got so pissed off about that they paid scientist to prove goldfish have longer memories than 3 seconds. Those scientists "proved" goldfish had a memory span of "at least" 3 months. 3 seconds, 3 months, whatever. Still pretty stupid. Mythbusters did a TV show on the myth, they "proved goldfish had a memory span of 8 seconds or more. B.F.D. if you ask me. Sticklebacks--- really stupid, no proof they have any memory span at all. Dr. Jens Krause, from Leeds University did a study I will try to find in one of my computers that fish are smarter than we think they are, but still only could come up with memory spans of less than 20 weeks. I have the study on my laptop, but it needs to get repaired before I can charge it again and retrieve the study, but here is the abstract http://www....edu/~icouzin/Hensor.htm

Just NEVER loan your car keys to a fish!!!

My dogs DO have a brain larger than PETA!

Like Beerfly said, most of a what a trout does is based on instinct...it's in the genes, including knowing what is good to eat and what is not. I read somewhere in a book by an old fly fisherman, maybe it was Isaac Walton or Lefy Kreh, they he had figured out over the years that trout have a memory of about half and hour. In my mind this beats the hell out of scientific research. I've tried to use that in my fishing...if I find a nice hole and catch or spook the fish there...I'll go away and maybe try again in about half and hour and that seems to work pretty well. That's mostly small streams though. PETA sucks.

CandR Article 12/07
http://www...om/101/story/570796.html

1. They put this comment up:

Under heavy angling pressure the larger fish of all species get cropped very quickly and are gone forever. As Lee Wulff often said,"overfishing the big ones, selects for only runts". All hatchery fish should be marked so they can be identified and harvested. Premium wild fish should be released. However, it makes no sense to attempt to mandate Catch-and-Release fishing regulations on a pond of stunted bluegill or stunted brook trout. Every watershed has its unique habitat and productivity characteristics which must be fully considered in setting angling regulations.

We are past the point where we need to do something to protect our heavily fished premium waters, if we want to hand down the angling heritage we know to future generations. Appropriate Catch-and-Release works in both Fresh and Salt water. It is a proven technique that needs to be used more often to restore and preserve good fishing

2. They have not put this up:

Fish Don’t Feel Pain:

Anthropomorphism is defined as an interpretation of what is not human, in terms of what is human. Ascribing human personality characteristics to cold-blooded animals is at best fallacious and at worst destructive to our outdoor traditions. The animal welfare movement has been sidetracked by this view and the result is an extremist animal rights agenda that now attempts to assign human existence values to animals. Fish don’t hurt, they are not human, and they do not have human rights.

http://www...edu/zoology/faculty/rose

http://uwa...e%20Rev%20Fish%20Sci.pdf

http://uwa...20Sneddon%20article2.doc