How Do You Quickly And Humanely Kill Fish?

[ThatZX14Fella]

I had to kill my first bass last night. I was using a soft plastic worm with 2 hooks in it. It was a bass about 8-9 inches and he swallowed this little worm whole. There was no way I could get the hooks out with him being so small, and the hooks being in his stomach meat... I took my very sharp buck knife about half an inch behind his eye and severed the brain stem and cut the head off. He died immediately and I was able to save my bait. The hooks were definatly lodged in his gut pretty good, so I didn't feel so bad about ending his fish life. To be honest, I would rather have saved the fish than the bait, I just didn't want the poor guy to live the rest of his life with hooks in his meat and a stupid worm stuck in his throat, impeding him from eating. But, his body made a good meal for a lazy catfish or one of the many huge over 2 ft bass in this guys pond.

 

My uncle got mad at me during a tournament last year when I was trying to delicately remove a hook from a fish. "Don't feel sorry for it!, rip that hook out and throw it in the livewell!" he said, but I couldn't help but feel bad for the fish. I fish for the sport, not to cause great harm to the animals.

 

Prepare to get hate, most of people will probably say what your uncle said to you. Luckily I've never had a bass swallow the hook, but I hav had a catfish that got the hook far enough back that I couldn't get it out and had to throw him back with a small treble hook in his mouth.

[J Francho]

I cut the gills, bleed the fish out, put them on ice if I plan to eat it.

[WRB]

Cutting bass gills doesn't improve the meat flavor with bass like it does with some fish, just put the live bass on ice and it suffocates quickly and humanely with no bloody mess. Cleaning live fish isn't humane on any level and disrespectful treatment of the animal.

Tom

[J Francho]

I'm not sure we're talking about bass exclusively. I don't eat bass - no method makes them taste good to me. Now a northern, walleye, or perch…now you're talking.

[tcbass]

Cutting bass gills doesn't improve the meat flavor with bass like it does with some fish, just put the live bass on ice and it suffocates quickly and humanely with no bloody mess. Cleaning live fish isn't humane on any level and disrespectful treatment of the animal.

Tom

 

 

 

I agree on the cutting the gills and blood part with bass. My brother tried the gill thing to bleed them, made a mess and the meat tasted the same.

 

 

 

I tried the ice today and that didn't work so well. One was still alive and the others were sorta hardened in a u-shape which made filleting hard.

 

 

 

I then tried using my knife to pierce the skull and reach the brain but it was so hard to push in I thought my knife blade was going to break in half and impale me. Man, I thought it was going to be easy to push the knife in after reading the posts on it.

 

 

 

Well, cutting the gills, icing, and piercing their skulls with my knife is out. What will I do now. lol.

 

 

 

 

And filleting them alive is also out of the question. lol. I did it in the past on a fish that I thought was dead. After one whole fillet was off it flopped around and threw scales everywhere inside my kitchen.

[WRB]

Use crushed ice or cube ice and put the ice on top of the bass in a cooler or drained live well, give it 30 minutes or a few hours if transporting them. In California you can't transport live sport fish. If the fish are not flat, bend them flat.

Tom

[J Francho]

You could try throwing them back if it's too much trouble.

[ThatZX14Fella]

Either throw them back or take a hatchet and cut the head off or crush their skull.

[HeavyFisher]

You could carry on 14" wooden bat and hit the fish on the head. That'll kill it for sure, and it would be pretty instant. I still prefer the slitting the gills method, as far as the meat tasting the same...bass is bass there is no method to improve the flavor(purely subjective) : P

[deaknh03]

drowning?

[Bob C]

I keep them happy in the live well until I get home. Filet and fry. If you're concerned about them, leave them alone and don't stick hooks in them.

[Bob C]

drowning?

I haven't tried that yet. Good idea.

[WRB]

I know it's old school to follow the sportsman creed of being a good sportsman by respecting the game you hunt and intend to harvest for food. Clean kill doesn't mean filleting live fish to me. Releasing fish alive and healthy is the best way to handle bass. Keeping severely stressed or wounded bass to eat or selective harvest by keeping smaller bass to eat is a choice we make as anglers and good conservationist. How we go about killing these bass determines if we are good sportsman or not. The OP is simply asking how to humanely kill the bass he intends to clean before eating. Some good suggestions, some humorous, some poor suggestions.

By the way you can drown fish by towing them by the tail, water going backwards through the gills, not a good idea for small fish like bass....maybe giant Black Sea bass, safer than the shot gun slug in the head method.

Tom

[JamesO]

I went trout fishing in montana this summer and thats when i cleaned my first fish. I was looking at a book and it said to hit it in the head with a blunt object

[Smokinal]

K-Kill?

[Mainebass1984]

This may seem like a strange question, especially from who's been killing and eating fish his entire life. I've always hit fish over the head with a heavy stick or something and it's killed them immediately. Recently I've been eating bass and they seem much harder to kill. I give the 5-8 whacks and they are still alive. I don't know if it's the sharp angle of their head vs. the more horizontal slope of a walleye but they are much harder to kill.

 

 

 

So, what's the best, quickest, most humane way to dispatch fish?

 

 A small metal 14 " bat. A good whack on top of the head ends things pretty d**n quickly.

 

Commercial and hatchery harvest of vast amounts of pacific salmon is done using this method.  It works on all game fish. Be sure to give it a firm hard whack on top of the head just behind the eyes. Instant death. It is quick and effective. There is no bloody mess.I have done this on thousands upon thousands of pacific salmon. It works.

 

The reason this method is used by commercial fisherman and hatchery workers is because it is kills the fish very quickly. When harvesting vast amounts of fish per day you don't want to waste any time waiting for a fish to die. Time is money.

 

Is it the most humane ? I think is up to argument and everyone has there own opinion. You put a fish on ice and it surely will flop around for a few minutes until it suffocates. Cutting the gills is a bit messy and the fish dies somewhat quickly for sure. A forceful sharp blow to the head and it will be dead within seconds if not instantly.

[tcbass]

 A small metal 14 " bat. A good whack on top of the head ends things pretty d**n quickly.

 

Commercial and hatchery harvest of vast amounts of pacific salmon is done using this method.  It works on all game fish. Be sure to give it a firm hard whack on top of the head just behind the eyes. Instant death. It is quick and effective. There is no bloody mess.I have done this on thousands upon thousands of pacific salmon. It works.

 

The reason this method is used by commercial fisherman and hatchery workers is because it is kills the fish very quickly. When harvesting vast amounts of fish per day you don't want to waste any time waiting for a fish to die. Time is money.

 

Is it the most humane ? I think is up to argument and everyone has there own opinion. You put a fish on ice and it surely will flop around for a few minutes until it suffocates. Cutting the gills is a bit messy and the fish dies somewhat quickly for sure. A forceful sharp blow to the head and it will be dead within seconds if not instantly.

 

 

 

Would a wood bat work or is there something special about a metal bat?

[Mainebass1984]

Would a wood bat work or is there something special about a metal bat?

 

That should work fine. I don't think it matters if its wood or metal as long as you hit them squarely on the top of the head just behind the eyes with a sharp firm blow.

[WRB]

The wooden bat is a old technique and use to be called a priest....gives them their last rights. You can use the fillet knife handle to knock out the bass. Remember the basses brain is small and well protected, be careful you don't hit or cut your own hand!

Tom

[ColdSVT]

Many years ago before all the anti-gun bs, my grandfather would shoot pike and musky in the head with a .22 before bringing them in the boat. Kind of like Swamp People only in Canada and Minnesota.

My buddys dad always said " a good muskie fiaherman always carries a ballpene hammer in his tacklebox"

[tcbass]

I found the solution!

 

 

 

I had to take apart this cheap storage bin and it was made with these 4 rods. I think they are steel. They are extremely heavy, yet thin. I tried it on 3 bass and it killed them with one small whack. Apparently by being thin they get quite the whipping action and momentum even though they are very small. They don't need a huge smack, just a quick, small hit and it's all over.

 

 

Perfect. No huge hammer or bat. Just a small thin, heavy rod. It's probably about 12" long and easy to store....and cheap!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RoLo]

Many years ago before all the anti-gun bs, my grandfather would shoot pike and musky in the head with a .22 before bringing them in the boat. Kind of like Swamp People only in Canada and Minnesota.

 

Years ago, my wife & I entered a Mako Invitational Tourney out of Hoffman's Marina, Manasquan, NJ.

To be eligible, the mako shark had to weigh 100 pounds or more, so you planned on boating some very large guests.

There were 101 boats in that tourney, which I can't forget because I entered on the deadline day and was boat # 99.

To my knowledge, there wasn't one skipper who wasn't toting a firearm aboard, at least a bang-stick.  That was 1979.

 

Roger

[tcbass]

Years ago, my wife & I entered a Mako Invitational Tourney out of Hoffman's Marina, Manasquan, NJ.

To be eligible, the mako shark had to weigh 100 pounds or more, so you planned on boating some very large guests.

There were 101 boats in that tourney, which I can't forget because I entered on the deadline day and was boat # 99.

To my knowledge, there wasn't one skipper who wasn't toting a firearm aboard, at least a bang-stick.  That was 1979.

 

Roger

Is that how they do it still?

Not sure I can shoot my bass. lol.

[5 Dollar Fishing Game]

Bite their head off, thats what real men do.

You watch too much deadliest catch lol

[RoLo]

Is that how they do it still?

 

I wonder about that myself, but I've been out of the Jersey loop too long to offer an accurate answer.

My guess would be that they still use bang-sticks deploying 12-ga shotshells, because sharks have a habit

of coming back to life at the weigh-in. Since women and children are in attendance, every effort is made

to assure a fully dispatched serpent on the gin pole. The Mako fishing routine is to auto-chum with bunker mash (menhaden)

and bait-up with a half mackerel. The fly-gaff is secured to a cleat 'before' hookup, because a handled gaff will be ripped

from your hands. The shark is bang-sticked alongside, then tail-roped and towed backwards to home port.

 

 

Not sure I can shoot my bass. lol.

 

For the little freshies, a Fish Billy used to be the tool of choice, but even a little penknife will do.

Back in the day of Catch-&-Keep, a 'fish billy' was general issue.

One clunk over the eyes and it's lights-out.

 

Roger