C&r Vs Gigging

[Chief Grey Bear]

Most everyone know that I am pretty much a staunch C&R fisherman. Only rarely do I keep a mess of fish and they have never been any of the three Black Bass species.

But when I see this, I can't really get behind bashing on giggers. I actually caught two fish like this yesterday. The first one was not as severe as this but none the less it had some pretty brutal damage.

I also encountered a three generation, father-son-grandson, team floating the same stretch. Very likeable people and just as friendly as could be. I thanked them for teaching the grandson the ways of the river and having him out there. Seconds later grandpa held up a stringer with a about 3 short goggle eye and one short bass. When we got out of earshot, I asked Dylan if he thought that bass would measure. He shook his head no. So now I don't feel they are teaching the boy right. But that is just my opinion.

After leaving them, a mile or so on down, we ran into another father-daughter team in a john working a hole of water. Very nice fella. Told what the brownies were biting on and such. He never showed his stringer but I saw one near him and one near her.

[Mitch f]

Gigging removes and destroys many more fish than C&R. Not sure why this would make you think any better or worse about giggers?

[Fishslayer88]

There is good and bad with anything in this world and i have caught seen many more fish affected by c&r then gigging. (aside from the ones harvested)

But the whole gigging debate is kinda like beating a dead horse ain't it?

[Chief Grey Bear]

There is good and bad with anything in this world and i have caught seen many more fish affected by c&r then gigging. (aside from the ones harvested)

But the whole gigging debate is kinda like beating a dead horse ain't it?

Agreed completely. Just pointing out that we(including me) put C&R above everything else and we (including me) look down upon every other type of fishing. When in fact do we know the true ramifications of it? I recall a pic posted by Mitch of a fish Al caught. In the pic was a pool of blood on the seat of the boat. I mentioned it and Mitch quickly told me that the fish swam off healthy. True the fish may have swam off, they always will. Doesn't mean it survived. I know the same has happened to me.

[Quillback]

Well a guy could always fish with barbless hooks. Not saying that I will, and a person will lose more fish, but you won't tear them up like the fish in the pics.

[Mitch f]

Barbless or not, even with huge trebles you wouldn't do that much damage, pure negligence

[dennis boatman]

I have fished with barbless hooks in Canada, and I can't think of a single time I lost solely because of barbless hooks. I probably use barbless about 80% of the time now, only using barbed hooks when crappie fishing, when I know I will be keeping some....Also, I've never heard of G and R, so maybe that can answer some questions...

[Guest]

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[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

I do every type of fishing gigging included. Giggers get a bad rap from the people who do it the wrong way. Hate to see smallie a damaged like that bit at least they are still swimming. I was on Norfork spearfishing this weekend and I have never seen so many smallmouth in my life. They were everywhere. Saw tons of 5+ largemouth too. We were catfish and walleye hunting. But honestly if someone wants to eat a few bass I have no problem with it. As long as they are legal. I bass fish a ton and I always let them go because I have plenty of crappie in the freezer. On a positive not I did see thousands of little bass fry that have just hatched. I understand totally though when you see someone taking illegal fish. Drives me nuts. I usually try to educate them before I am an asshole. But 9 times out of 10 I'm an asshole telling them that they are keeping illegal fish.

[Al Agnew]

For some reason, I've caught several bass with wounds on their mouths like that this year, when usually I don't see more than one or two a year. I don't know what it is this year, but there seem to be a lot more people fishing the rivers and a lot more people either keeping the fish or apparently "releasing" them with no regard whatsoever about how they unhook them.

I gotta wonder if some, perhaps very small, part of it is the reward tag program, though I've caught fish on streams that aren't a part of the tagging program that have the wounds as well. But there is something inherently distasteful to me about putting that kind of money on a fish. I know that Corey has reported a lot more people fishing the Courtois around the season opener than usual, apparently trying to catch those tagged fish. When all you're doing it for is the money, you tend to not care much about the fish you catch that don't have tags.

As for the infamous bleeding fish Chief mentioned, I've "proven" to my own satisfaction that bass CAN live after being seriously gill-hooked. I know because I've caught healthy fish with significant, long-healed gill wounds, including one that had one whole section of gill torn away and hanging out the gill cover. I've also caught fish that bled seriously like that which I released into my pond, and re-caught them weeks later, completely healed and healthy. A bass can bleed pretty copiously and still survive. And if you catch one that's bleeding like that, even if you want the picture as we did that day, it helps a lot to immediately dip the fish back in the water, and keep doing it if it takes some time to get the hook out. Fish blood coagulates VERY quickly in water, but doesn't coagulate much at all out of the water. To prove it to yourself, watch when you dip a bleeding fish in the water. The blood can be running, completely liquid, down its side, but when you dip it in the water, the blood on its side actually comes off and instantly turns to chunks of semi-solid matter.

So while I don't WANT to hook a fish in such a way that it bleeds, when it happens I don't automatically write that fish off. You unhook it and hope for the best.

The problem with gigging isn't with individual fish being horribly wounded and killed. The problem is the effect gigging could have on the size structure of the fish population. Hook and line catch and release anglers don't catch all that many big fish, they catch fish of all sizes. If, say, 5% of those they catch end up dying after release, that's 5% of fish of all sizes, and since they don't catch that many big ones to begin with, it's 5% of very few total big fish. But giggers, if so inclined, target big fish, and probably don't bother with gigging small ones, and every big one they gig either ends up dead or badly wounded and unhealthy to probably die later. So while I might have killed that one big fish that Chief mentioned, if so it was probably the only big fish I killed that winter, while a single unethical gigger could kill a bunch of them purposely.