Keeping Bass

[tugsandpulls]

im a cook and work in a restaurant ill keep some lmb in the right slot size and cook them at work i think they taste good

[PondBoss]

That sounds pretty horrible bro. I saw a guy fillet some catfish and then throw them in a hole and bury them. The fish were still alive filleted out when he was throwing dirt on them. I figure that is the absolute least humane way of going about it. That same guy tried to tell me fish don't feel pain. What do you guys think?

 

Just nerves man and muscles moving around.  Like cutting the head off of a chicken, it will still run around for a few minutes headless, but I'm sure it's dead.  I wanna say that fish don't feel pain and I am pretty sure studies have been done to prove this, but in all honesty fish don't speak so who the hell knows.  I personally manage a few small bodies of water and take every fish I catch under 16 inches out.  Since I have started doing this the average size has gone up by almost a pound.  As said before, ideally 15-20 lb of fish need to be removed per acre per year.  The reason I take all the small fish from my waters is there are still too many fish in it and I only am able to get to the water 10-12 times a year.  

[Snakehead Whisperer]

Just nerves man and muscles moving around.  Like cutting the head off of a chicken, it will still run around for a few minutes headless, but I'm sure it's dead.  I wanna say that fish don't feel pain and I am pretty sure studies have been done to prove this, but in all honesty fish don't speak so who the hell knows.  I personally manage a few small bodies of water and take every fish I catch under 16 inches out.  Since I have started doing this the average size has gone up by almost a pound.  As said before, ideally 15-20 lb of fish need to be removed per acre per year.  The reason I take all the small fish from my waters is there are still too many fish in it and I only am able to get to the water 10-12 times a year.  

There have actually been numerous studies that show that fish most definitely do feel pain, and most controlled studies reach these same results. How they interpret that pain, and whether it causes suffrage to the fish is a different question (nobody knows but the fish.) I do understand the logic of thinning the herd. I just choose to do so in a humane way. I've killed lots of fish in my life, so I too am guilty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_fish

[fadetoblack21]

It all depends on where I'm fishing. One of the lakes I fish alot is a private lake that is grossly overpopulated according to the survey done last year. Me and my fishing buddy are about the only ones who target bass, so we keep quite a few for fish fries. If I'm fishing on a well maintained lake with a healthy population, I will most likely CR, but sometimes will take some dinks home for dinner. We love us some fish in our house!

[PondBoss]

There have actually been numerous studies that show that fish most definitely do feel pain, and most controlled studies reach these same results. How they interpret that pain, and whether it causes suffrage to the fish is a different question (nobody knows but the fish.) I do understand the logic of thinning the herd. I just choose to do so in a humane way. I've killed lots of fish in my life, so I too am guilty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_fish

 

I know that I read something about fish not having pain receptors somewhere, it may have been in the mouth, but I'm not sure.  Fish don't scream or make noise that I can hear, so anyway to get the sides off of them is humane to me.

[Snakehead Whisperer]

I know that I read something about fish not having pain receptors somewhere, it may have been in the mouth, but I'm not sure.  Fish don't scream or make noise that I can hear, so anyway to get the sides off of them is humane to me.

Fair enough.

 

The problem I see is that it's still a popular misconception to many that harvesting the bigger fish is the right thing to do. Of all the bass I saw other anglers harvesting on the Potomac last year, most were 4 lbs. or larger (completely within the law.)