I got in an interesting argument the other day with a friend at a local tackle shop. I was talking to a couple of people and mentioning that ?Catch and Release? greatly limited your catch because the fish you release go back and tell his friends and associates that there is danger in the area. I base this view on a comparison of my bass boating days and my newer, enlighten fly fishing days. In the bass boating days, my semi professional, bass-fishing friend and I could catch fish after fish off various points and drop-offs as long as the fish were placed in the live well and held there. If a fish got off the line or was released, the catch declined almost immediately. Today, I fish from shore and release all my fish (well, almost all). The fish that I catch go right back into the water. I seldom catch more than one or two fish off a single holding area even though I play the fish quickly and move the hooked fish away from the holding area. I am mainly talking about warmwater fishing here (bass, brim) but I?ve seen the same behavior occur with trout when they are tightly grouped together. BWT, small brim and other small sunfish are clearly an exception to this rule.
The guy at the tackle shop didn?t believe this but I know that released fish rat us out to their friends. Other fish in the area can detect the distress of the released fish either by its behavior, chemical secretions, color change or text messaging and develop a severe case of lock jaw. What do you think? 8T
Quit thinking so much and go fishing.
Any fish that’s worth it’s salt, wouldn’t be loyal to another fish. I wonder if it’s possible that the trout have bingo on wednesdays??
I also wonder if this post will morph into a game of strange questions?
Doug
A while ago there was an article in Bassmaster touching on this. According to some research when you hook a fish it releases some scent into the water that warns other fish about dnager. Think about this along the same line as land animal screaming when attacked. However the scent dissipates quickly and on top of it other fish in the area might even ignore it (I guess it depends on how hungry they are). I cannot remeber if this was true for all fish or just certain spiecies. My thinkin is that stressed fish will continue to “stink up the water” after being released therefore your catch rate is lower. Either that or simply the comotion in the water simply turns fish off.
As I like to say to my students when they ask a question—sounds like an experiment.
Years ago, in an animal behavior lab my class conducted an experiment that might be apropos to this question. We had an aquarium of full of shiners (minnows) that were acclimated to being fed by hand. As we lowered our fingers to the water the school of minnows would all congregate around our fingers with or without food.
We removed one minnow with a net and placed him/her in a small dish. Then we proceeded to harass the captured minnow for a time (no minnows were harmed in this experiments .) Next with an eye dropper we removed some water from the stressed minnow’s dish. Then the eye-dropper was taken over to the aquarium with the other minnows who figured they were about to be fed and came to the surface. Instead of food they received one drop of the water from the stressed fish. The results were amazing and unequivocal. Every member of the school of minnows immediately scattered to all corners of the aquarium–instant flight response. Not only did they scatter, it was several days before we could get them to come back to being fed by hand.
It is certainly clear in an aquarium with schooling minnows–maybe these results have some application on the stream.
8T,
I believe you to be correct at least from what I’ve found fishing smallies. I work with a few tourney bass anglers that make some larger circuits and they first told me this regarding smallies.
I didn’t believe this “hogwash” until I came to remembering events surrounding some good catching and released fish. On a couple successive years whilst on a family vacation I did the test…using a live well and again not using but immediately releasing my fish.
I was very surprised at what I found! Now, if I run up on some good fishing (smallies …I’ve only done this with smallies) I’ll stash them in a running livewell until the bite fades and then release them. It’s been an incredible eye-opener. The fish must give off some “indicator” of stress in some manner.
It also brings in the muskies…bigtime! That may be due to the struggling and vibes in the water though. Very interesting and something I didn’t believe until I personally tested it!
I caught a nice boy brown trout one time and took him to the bar in a bucket. I met up with a guy who had happened to have done the same thing with a girl brown trout. We poured them into a bigger bucket together and dropped in a shot glass full of Jack Black. After the evening was done, we took them back to the stream and dumped them in.
2 weeks later I was fishing in the same place and the browns lined up to take a shot at my hook.
I have caught many trout that were following a hooked fish. When your partner catches a fish, watch carefully and often you will see another fish following close to the hooked one. Cast just to the side and behind the hooked one and sometimes this will result in a strike. This is particularly true in lakes and the ocean.
I do know that you have to rest a pool for a while after you have caught several fish or your success will dwindle to nothing.
As for fish ratting me out , I often wear a disguise while on the water so the fish don’t recognise me from last time. If I know which fish was the dirty rat , I give the word to Vinney and Louie they make sure it sleeps with the fishes.
That rat didn’t tell the other 20 crappie the other night. Obviously your friend has never crappie fished a day in his life. YOu can yank 20-50 crappie out of the same hole in a matter of an hour or 2…let alone catch and release trout streams.
Now will the fish you just caught be harder to re-catch? Well if you were just yanked into outerspace after munching on a hot dog would you go buy another real quickly?
Marco, I jest only about text messaging. Most fins are too soft to depress the buttons but catfish spines work well. The rest is serious. Something about the hooked fish communicates danger to the others.
Dshock, I can’t stop thinking. Isn’t fly fishing the thinking man’s (woman’s) sport? I don’t believe they even allow you to buy a flyrod unless you can pass the entrance test for Mensa.
Brad, great study! What grade level do you teach? I’d like to be in your class.
Bobinmich, it that true? Would other vodka or tequila work as well?
GBF, I’ve had the same experience. Perhaps in the heat of the chase, the scent is ignored or dispersed in the water. Perhaps the a time delay in the release of the bad chemicals.
Jeremy and MikieFinn, Your experiences are very similar to mine. I’m a firm believer in this bad scent thing. Brad’s experiment takes a lot of the extraneous variables out of this situation and leaves scent as the major factors.
Before I release a fish I hold him, and I whisper in his ear that this incident is between the two of us. If he opens his mouth I will be back, and he will suffer the consequences. I usally threaten to break his fin caps. :shock:
I catch lots of fish…
8T,
After reading some other replies, I don’t think fish that are hooked turn off or warn other fish. I have witnessed how competitive fish are when one fish is hooked. They follow one another instead of swim the other way.
Also I don’t like the tone of my first reply. I am usually more diplomatic.
Sorry,
Doug
Tequila makes the female’s scales fall off! So please don’t do that. Stick to Jack Daniels.
I do believe in resting a specific lie or pool after a few fish. This varies greatly though. You can tell when things slow down. That’s the time to move on or take a good break. In my experience with trout, wild trout fisheries tend to have a magic number of 2. 2 fish from the same spot and it’s time to move. But some of the heavier stocked trout haunts the magic number seems to be as high as 10 if you’re in a perennial feeding lane in good fishing conditions.
But the crappie guys are right. You can stand over a crappie, bream, or bluegill hole and catch fish all day. And I’ve never had such a problem with bass, either…if the bite is on. And freaking white bass will fight over the same lure cast after cast when they are schooling. That’s because of the way they feed. They “herd” baitfish toward the surface in teams and whack them near the top. It’s a cooperative but competitive feeding frenzy. So they aren’t turned off by their brothers and sisters getting yanked out of the water.
Thank goodness for moving water to wash away that warning scent before the other fish can smell it. Gotta give some love to rivers and streams. The other fish never even smell what’s coming.
Actually, C & R fishing helps you to catch more fish. It?s like Androcles and the Lion: The fish gets hooked, you bring it in and rescue it from its pain and stress, and as a result, it becomes your lifelong friend.
More I think about this more I think that this behavior changes depending not only on the spiecies but the particular situation also.
Last weekend I was fishing for stocked trout. Between my wife and myself we have pulled multiple bows from the lake and we were targeting the same spot maybe 20 or 30 feet diameter circle. All the fish were caught within an hour and a half some of them within second from each other. So if the hooked ones were ratting us out the other fish did not pay any heed. But last year in identical situation I have hooked one trout and the others scaterred. They did not return to the same spot for about 15 minutes even though I did not released the fish.
On the same day few hours later I have hooked one fish out of the pod and saw three others following it trying to “steal” the food I guess.
If anything that just makes me more certain that term fishing is quite apt. If we could accurately predict the behavior of the fish in all different kind of situations than we would switch to catching and for me and many others the activity would loose it’s appeal. I mean if we wanted to participate in somethig this predictible than might as well pick up stamp collecting.
But please do not misunderstand: this topic is quite interesting because we are all curious creatuers (fish including). Not to mention the entertaiment value. BTW. Does foreign alcohol work any different? I got some good polish vodka in the fridge and wonder how would it work on american fish… I was thinking to do a bit experiment but I’m afraid the the vodka would not survive the trip to the stream…
.) Next with an eye dropper we removed some water from the stressed minnow’s dish. Then the eye-dropper was taken over to the aquarium with the other minnows who figured they were about to be fed and came to the surface. Instead of food they received one drop of the water from the stressed fish. The results were amazing and unequivocal. Every member of the school of minnows immediately scattered to all corners of the aquarium–instant flight response. Not only did they scatter, it was several days before we could get them to come back to being fed by hand.