Many friends of mine who are guides in the Gulf swear that sunscreen on your hand will kill every baitfish in the livewell.
I’ve seen a livewell full of fresh but dead baitfish and seen sunscreen blamed.
IS THIS TRUE?
I can’t find info on the Net.
If this is true, could it effect fish in the water. Should we not dunk sunscreened hands in lakes or streams?
Bob - I don’t know about killing the fish but here is a true story for you. My father was getting along in years and was no longer able to hit the fly rod. I would visit him and we would bait fish and bull fish about old times. One day I was catching all the fish, him nothing. We got comparing and found that the sun screen on his hands was mixing with the power bait. I baited his hook & he started catching fish. Also had a similiar instance where the size of the power bait ball meant success or failure. Some times those little things count.
Tim
Personally I can’t stand sunscreen on my hands.
Yes, some types of sunscreen are very hard on fish esp marine fish. If it gets concentrated enough (e.g. repeated dunking of slathered hands in a live well, lots of people swimming in a lagoon or small area) it could have an effect. There are a LOT of chemicals that have demonstrable effects at less than part per million concentrations. A part per million is about one about one good spit into an Olympic size swimming pool. Some chemicals (e.g.Diazinon), show toxic effects in water at part per billion concentrations. Fact - not fiction. The amount of lotion from occasional dunk of slathered hands in a larger river or stream is probably diluted enough to be harmless. I hate the stuff on my hands too and always try to avoid getting ANY on lures or flies.
To clarify, Diazinon is an insecticide. It absorbs through human skin and can build up to lethal levels very quickly. Case in point, a golfer who died of Diazinon poisoning and was believed to have gotten the lethal dose from cleaning grass bits and stains off of his golf clubs using his hands. It is now very strictly controlled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diazinon
I worked at a golf course for a couple of summers and I’ve had to run around the course picking up dead birds from the previous day’s spraying.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
Ed